Opposition criticial of gov’t’s road map, offers its own measures

The opposition harshly criticized the government and its road map for a solution to the decades-old Kurdish question on Friday in a relevantly calmer session than the parliamentary debate on Tuesday.

The tension in Parliament increased when two youths staged a protest inside the hall where the session was being held. Ten minutes later, Pakize Akbaba, a mother of a soldier who was killed on duty, wanted to open a Turkish flag inside the hall but was blocked by the officials.

Following remarks made by Interior Minister Beşir Atalay on the initiative, the opposition parties took the floor. Taking the floor right after Atalay, Democratic Society Party, or DTP, leader Ahmet Türk expressed his party’s dissatisfaction with the government’s ongoing Kurdish initiative.

He criticized the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government for planning the Kurdish initiative behind closed doors and reducing the solution of the Kurdish question to a military solution. He proposed the establishment of a parliamentary commission to both investigate what he called the historical mistakes past governments made on the Kurdish problem and to concretize the initiative.

“The AKP’s Kurdish initiative is the result of international imposition and remains far from reaching a solution. Problems continue because the government has reduced the problem’s solution to a military solution. If there is a concrete solution proposal, weapons may no longer be the main agenda [of the country],” Türk said.

Türk said the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, emerged as a problem because of the political mistakes of past governments but did not imply a conflict between Turks and Kurds. For Türk, the assimilatory policies of past governments were responsible for the creation of the Kurdish question. He said Kurds had no problem with the flag, borders and Turkish being the common language. Kurds, however, had social, political and economic problems, he said.

‘A PKK initiative’

Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, leader Devlet Bahçeli said the government’s Kurdish initiative was a PKK initiative and that it was very unfortunate to hold parliamentary talks to discuss the projects of division under the guise of an “initiative.”

“The AKP, which came up with a PKK initiative, has now come to a point where it has surrendered to a terror organization. On one hand, we have our beliefs and glorious flag, and, on other hand, there is the mentality of a crusader,” Bahçeli said.

“Everybody is equal regardless of religion, language and race. Nobody can claim that they’re deprived of their rights. Nobody can claim that they can’t enter politics because of their origin. It is nobody’s fault if people can’t express themselves. The problem is with the feudal structure,” he said.

Solution relies on surrender and economic measures

Bahçeli proposed that all terrorists lay down their arms and surrender. He also said poverty and unemployment should be eliminated in the Southeast to end the Kurdish problem. Bahçeli also said the Kurdish initiative was drafted as part of the Greater Middle East Project led by the world powers to take the control of water and energy in the region.

“Aim is to release Öcalan’

In his address to Parliament, Republican People’s Party, or CHP, leader Deniz Baykal accused the government of holding a parliamentary session to destroy the identity of the nation-state and the efforts to build a nation.

“This is an important breaking point. The government is in a bid to release the outlawed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in cooperation with the PKK,” Baykal said.

Baykal also criticized the release of the returnees from northern Iraq and the government’s leading officials who welcomed them at the Habur border. He further criticized Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for defining the images at the border as promising.

Noting that no government has the right to negotiate with the terrorist organization, Baykal said the government should call on the PKK to lay down their arms. “You can’t negotiate with the terrorists, you can [only] combat them,” Baykal said.

‘Social and economic reform needed’

Baykal said granting the right to every ethnic identity to establish its own state and establish an education system, which would allow education in their own language would lead to division. A comprehensive social and economic reform was needed and unemployment should be eliminated to end the Kurdish problem, according to him.

Criticizing Türk for his remarks that recalled history and Kurds’ bad memories, Baykal said, “It is no use to go back to the past. Whatever happened, happened in the past. We should live together from now on,” he said.