Baykal agrees to meet with PM but wants to be recorded

Main opposition party leader Deniz Baykal on Monday invited Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to discuss the government-led Kurdish move through a six-page letter full of criticism for the government.

“I will be pleased to host you at the CHP [Republican People’s Party] headquarters at any time you would like next week,” Baykal said in his letter but with the condition of being recorded by a television channel to rightly inform the public on the discussion. There was no reply from Erdoğan to the invitation late Monday when the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review went to print.

Erdoğan sent a letter to Baykal last Friday to ask for the CHP’s contribution to the process. The correspondence between the two leaders drew reaction from the other political parties. However, Baykal’s resistance to meet with Erdoğan could only be overcome through the letter Erdoğan wrote to Baykal. It has been a long time since the two leaders have come together in a face-to-face meeting.

Baykal also enclosed three reports in his response letter to Erdoğan. These three reports were titled “Approach to East and Southeast Problems and Solution Proposals-1989,” “Bill on Using Different Languages than Turkish-1991”, and “Parts of the CHP Program on East and Southeast Problems-2008.” The CHP, as the oldest political party, had initiated a solution to the Kurdish question but could not move forward due to unsuitable political conditions.

Baykal’s criticism is focused on the lack of description and the content of the initiative, though it has been months since the government launched it. “First it was named the Kurdish initiative, then was turned into the democratic opening, and lately it has become the national unity project. Unfortunately this policy has begun to give discriminatory results,” he said.

Recalling the government’s rhetoric of “historical opportunity,” Baykal said it was the people’s right to learn what this opportunity was. He also criticized the statements made by Interior Minister Beşir Atalay who called on all parties to back the necessary constitutional changes.

For Baykal, these sorts of messages were encouraging the terrorist group the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party for reaching its purposes. “The political project of the terror organization is to distinguish the people from the state. To place an ethnic language as a selective course at the core of the national education starting from the universities will stand as the first phase of this project,” he said.

He said the government’s political initiative boosted the effectiveness and credibility of the terror organization, especially in the southeastern Anatolia region. Baykal also said at the end of this process the government would have to recognize the terror organization as an interlocutor for the solution.

“The dilemma of the opening process is this,” he said, adding that the real project should be based on increasing socioeconomic conditions of the region to increase the quality of life.