DEM Party to start meetings to seek support for resolution process

ANKARA

Senior officials from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) will hold a new round of meetings with other political parties to seek support for advancing the resolution process that aims to bring a permanent end to the terrorism problem and disband PKK.

“We will visit the political parties, but the details are yet to be set. The tour will include the components of the People’s Alliance,” co-chairpersons of the DEM Party, Tülay Hatimoğulları and Tuncer Bakırhan, told a group of reporters at the parliament on March 4.

“We can start the tour next week.”

The People’s Alliance is composed of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

The DEM Party’s tour will follow a unilateral ceasefire announced by the PKK on March 1 in line with the historic call by its jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan for the disbandment of the terror organization.

The co-chairpersons, however, underlined that there are so many issues to be fixed for the implementation of the process, including democratic and legal measures, as well as the status of Öcalan.

“The reason of this unclarity is the absence of concrete steps. Only these steps varying from law on execution of sentences to law on local governments, will determine the outcome,” Hatimoğulları said.

For this, a commission needs to be formed at the parliament with the participation of all parties, she said.

Hatimoğulları stressed that Öcalan’s status, who is serving a life sentence on an island in the Marmara Sea, should also be revised so that he can lead and support the resolution process.

“In addition, a democratization process on the basis of equal citizenship should be launched,” she said, recalling that a number of DEM mayors in the southeastern Anatolian provinces have been removed from their offices due to terrorism-linked accusations.

Hatimoğulları, on a question, stressed that Öcalan’s call does not address the YPG in northeastern Syria but added that the accomplishment of the process with PKK will also have positive impacts on peace in Syria.