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Despite doubts, PKK much closer to withdrawal

April 10, 2013 16:24
Dispersing doubts little by little, the Kurdish peace process is taking shape as the days go by. To repeat a short phrase of mine: so far, so good. To paraphrase a source who is inside the process: “What is taking place behind closed doors is actually one month ahead of where the public debate is.” The written response of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) command in Kandil Mountain to the second letter from Abdullah Ocalan has now been handed over to the Ministry of Justice and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) for analysis.

Kandil complies with withdrawal decision, has reservations, reports say

April 10, 2013 16:17
Top operatives of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Kandil Mountains of northern Iraq, where PKK hideouts are located, have agreed to the withdrawal of PKK terrorist from Turkish soil, yet they say they have reservations, media reports indicated on Tuesday. Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Co-chairperson Selahattin Demirtas and BDP Istanbul deputy Sirri Sureyya Onder returned from Kandil to Turkey on Tuesday. They had traveled to the region in order to deliver a letter written by the imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, to PKK operatives in Kandil.

‘Young Turks' file complaint against wise men committee

April 10, 2013 16:17
The Young Turks Association has filed a complaint against the members of the “wise men” committee established to inform the public about the ongoing settlement talks with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), at the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on Tuesday. Gathering in front of the Istanbul Courthouse on Tuesday, a 30-person group of members of the Young Turks Association staged a protest against the wise men committee comprising 63 intellectuals and journalists.

Nationalist party leader calls PM traitor

April 10, 2013 16:08
The leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has harshly criticized Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, claiming that the prime minister is committing treason by pursuing a settlement process the government launched at the end of last year to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue. “The government has been making use of all its resources to cause the collapse of the nation,” Devlet Bahceli said at his party's parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday. Bahceli said that international powers are behind the settlement process, which he claimed would have a fatal

BDP leader returns to Turkey with Kandil's response to Ocalan

April 10, 2013 16:06
Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) leader Selahattin Demirtas has brought a letter of response from Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in Kandil -- a mountainous area in northern Iraq where the PKK's main camp is located -- written in reply to a letter from PKK chief Abdullah Ocalan. Demirtas and two other BDP deputies -- Pervin Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder -- met with PKK leader Ocalan on April 3 on Imrali Island, where Ocalan has been imprisoned since his capture in 1999, as part of ongoing talks aimed at resolving Turkey's long-standing terrorism problem. Du

Kurds, Islamists clash at Turkish university

April 10, 2013 12:15
Clashes between sympathisers of the Kurdish rebel movement and Islamists that broke out at a university in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast this week left four people injured on Wednesday, security officials said. The violence erupted at Dicle University in Diyarbakir city on Monday when the rebel sympathisers confronted others supporting Turkey's largely defunct Hezbollah movement over Islamic brochures the latter were distributing.

Kerry welcomes PKK's commitment to drop arms

April 7, 2013 09:00
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday hailed the commitment of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to a ceasefire under a renewed push by the Turkish government to end three decades of hostilities. "We welcome the PKK's commitment to lay down its arms," Kerry told a news conference in Istanbul with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. "We discussed our work to combat terrorism in all its forms ... including the violence that has plagued Turkey for three long decades," he said. "No peace process is easy. It always take courage and determination."

What will the wise men do?

April 6, 2013 16:41
The members of the wise men commission who will join the solution process have been identified, and they had a meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday. This column was written ahead of that meeting. Before trying to answer the question posed in the title, I would like to discuss the attribute "wise." The common denominator of the people on the commission list is that they all support the ongoing peace process launched by the government.

What should wise people do for the peace process?

April 6, 2013 16:40
The notion of wise people/wise men was originally brought forward by Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who is serving his life sentence in prison on Imrali Island. When he talked about the wise people, Ocalan was referring to a body that would act as a kind of mediator that would facilitate the negations between the PKK and the government. He recently talked about this group of wise people in the context of the PKK's withdrawal from Turkey.

Ocalan calls for ‘bloodless' settlement in birthday message

April 6, 2013 16:35
The imprisoned leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, has issued a message for his 64th birthday in which he said the settlement of the Kurdish and terrorism problems should be “bloodless.” "Let not a drop of blood be shed during the settlement process," read the message. Ocalan's message was taken to Kurds celebrating the terrorist head's birthday by a group of Kurdish lawmakers on Thursday. Thousands of Kurds flocked to Omerli village in Sanliurfa's Halfeti district, where Ocalan was born, to mark the PKK head's birthday.
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