Demirtaş: AKP wants to manipulate peace process

2015-02-26 11:36:50

ISTANBUL (DİHA) - Discussions in the Kurdish and Turkish media recently have have been about the fate of the so-called "resolution process" to the Kurdish question.

News items have been centred around the 10 articles proposed for the resolution process by PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to the Turkish state and Justice and Development Party (AKP), as well as the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK).

'AKP wants to change articles'

It was expected that a joint statement would be made on 15 Feb 2015 by the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), leading to the resolution process' passage into the second phase, termed by the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan as the "negotiation phase". However it has been revealed by HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtas that this did not happen because the AKP government wanted to change the 10 articles proposed by Öcalan.

'KCK accepts the articles'

The HDP delegation which has been meeting with the PKK leader on the island prison of Imrali took the 10 articles to the KCK council recently and announced that the KCK accepted the 10 articles and wanted negotiations to begin.

'AKP wants to manipulate the process'

Selahattin Demirtas also stated that the AKP government wanted to announce that Öcalan was calling on the PKK to lay down their arms but that this wasn't true in the current conditions. He added that the PKK was ready to lay down their arms but that they were saying they would only do this if the necessary steps were taken in the negotiation phase. Demirtas emphasised that there were no disagreements between Öcalan, the PKK and HDP and that the AKP government was trying to manipulate the situation in their favour by making it look like the HDP were preventing the process from developing.

Abdullah Öcalan's 10 articles for the resolution process are as follows:

1. The content of democratic politics must be discussed

2. The national and local dimensions of the democratic resolution must be discussed

3. The legal and democratic assurances of free citizenship

4 - Headings regarding the relationship between democratic politics, the state and society and the institutionalisation of these

5 - The socio-economic dimensions of the resolution process

6 - The new security structure that the resolution process will lead to

7 - Legal assurances regarding the issues of women, culture and ecology

8 - The development of mechanisms of equality regarding the definition and notion of identity

9 -  Defining the democratic republic, common homeland and people in-line with democratic criteria

10 - A new constitution that will help to internalise all these democratic steps.

(nt)