CHP, MHP reject Öcalan’s inclusion

ANKARA

‘We see how the process turned the country to more bloodshed’ says CHP MP Tarhan.

Both the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) reacted strongly yesterday to Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin’s remarks that Abdullah Öcalan, convicted leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who is serving life sentence in İmralı Island, could be included in a possible solution process.

Emine Ülker Tarhan, deputy chair of the CHP’s parliamentary group, suggested that previous negotiations between the government and the PKK had been counterproductive. “Perhaps the government was able to achieve a ceasefire before the elections by conducting the Oslo negotiations, but the situation after the elections became apparent. We see how the process turned the country to more bloodshed, and it’s obvious that those negations led to nasty results. How can we now talk positively about Minister Ergin’s statement?” she said.

MHP Deputy Chair Reşat Doğru said that Ergin’s approach was “inappropriate.” “What happened when the meetings took place with Kandil and İmralı? Was the problem solved? Terror has been triggered further. The terror problem cannot be solved through dialogue or by addressing remarks to the PKK terror organization. This will be the biggest compromise to terror, and it this is what the terror organization and its leaders want, too. Meeting with the murderer Öcalan will put our country in even bigger problems. Terror is something to fight with, not to have a dialogue with.” Meanwhile, the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) has heeded messages delivered by the government, but doesn’t find them “sincere and trustworthy,” the party’s co-chair Gülten Kışanak said. She said the government had been simply trying to buy time with their remarks, supposedly the sign of a new initiative on the Kurdish issue.

“Neither the PKK nor Öcalan stopped the Oslo negotiations. The government gave up [the negotiations] because it was not sincere in trying to solve the problem,” Kışanak said. “How will dialogue and negotiation take place without sincerity and trust? We have serious doubts at this point. The BDP has those doubts, and the PKK [the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party] and Kandil have the same doubts too,” Kışanak told the Hürriyet Daily News.

In response to a question on Tuesday, Ergin had said: “I make no distinction in regards to Öcalan’s inclusion to this process. There are instruments that can be used for this solution. The intelligence organization, political institutions and security bureaucracy will decide which instrument to use.”