Turkey will choose a new parliament and a new president in the 14 May elections that will shape the country’s future. In the run-up to the most contentious and critical elections in recent history, the country is witnessing harsh government accusations against the main opposition and pro-Kurdish circles.
The opposition’s joint candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu could end President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 21-year reign in the elections with open support from the pro-Kurdish voting bloc.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) officials often accuse the pro-Kurdish opposition of terrorism and Kılıçdaroğlu of collaborating with terrorists. A number of people have been arrested in a series of pre-election operations against the left-wing bloc led by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
The HDP will be participating in the elections under the Green Left Party because there is an ongoing court case calling for the HDP’s closure.
Selahattin Demirtaş, the imprisoned former co-chair of the HDP, recently released an article explaining why Erdoğan and his party are so aggressive against the pro-Kurdish opposition. In his article, Demirtaş describes what happened during the 2013 peace process, which included talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its leader Abdullah Öcalan in İmralı Prison, to resolve the Kurdish conflict in the country, and how the process ended.
Below, you can read the translation of Demirtaş’s article, lightly edited for clarification.
Why is Erdoğan hostile to us?
Don’t you think it is peculiar that Erdoğan is so vengeful, so angry, so hostile against “Selo”, or rather, against the HDP and all the Kurds, and tries to make a hate figure out of me in an attempt to secure votes?
Does he really think that I am a “terrorist”, a “murderer”? No, he knows very well that it is simply not true.
In fact, Erdoğan has no issue with the actual murderers. For example; he doesn’t mind going all the way to Putin, who had slaughtered 34 Turkish soldiers in Eldleb [Idlib], and to be even made to stand and wait there for several minutes. He has absolutely no shame to shake hands and be so cosy with Israel, which he refers to as a “terrorist state”, or with the Saudi crown prince, murderer of journalist Cemal Kaşıkçı, and so many other killers whom he addressed as “my friend”.
Then, why does he resort to false accusations and hostility towards the “Kurdish Selo” when he seeks to incite his supporters?
Let me try to explain:
“If you are doing it to make an impression, then you are doing wrong.”
It must have been mid-2014. When we visited İmralı island prison as a delegation during the ongoing resolution process, while we were waiting to be taken to the room where we would meet Abdullah Öcalan, the prison director took us to another place inside the prison. The meeting place must have changed, we thought. He first took us to the narrow cell where Öcalan had been held for many years. Öcalan was not in the cell. We examined the cell for about five minutes. The warden said, “Öcalan will not stay here anymore,” and took us to another place right next door.
He opened a wood-effect steel door that seemed like a normal apartment door and said, “This is his new place.” Three cells next to each other had been merged and a luxurious three-room apartment (!) had been built.
In the first room, there was a normal wooden bed frame and bed, a bookcase with 1,003 books (all books were numbered and arranged in order), a big screen LED television, a plastic table and a chair.
The second room had a meeting table for six people, a computer desk and a small screen LED television.
The third room was a large bathroom with floor-to-ceiling tiles, a pedestal sink and a walk-in shower. The manager said they would put an additional bathtub in the bathroom. I don’t know if they did.
While we were touring this apartment (!) built inside the İmralı prison, they brought Öcalan along. He also saw it for the first time. His first reaction was to ask: “Is this the reason for all the noise for months?” The director laughed and said, “Yes, you will stay here from now on”. Öcalan took a cursory look around and said, “It makes no difference to me whether you put me in a place as large as a stadium or keep me in a cell, there is no need for such things. If you are doing it to make an impression, then you are doing wrong. The important thing is to focus on solution, peace and democratisation.” The director was surprised by Öcalan’s attitude and seemed a little sad that all the work had gone to waste. We don’t know if Öcalan stayed there or if he was taken back to the cell after Erdoğan ended the resolution process.
A large meeting room was also built on the upper floor of the prison, with equipment such as a tea maker and a coffee machine.
There, Öcalan was to have a meeting with the wise people delegation that was established to mediate talks between the PKK and the government. I did not see that room, but other members of our delegation have been there on subsequent visits. At that stage, the plan was that the wise people would go to İmralı to hold talks, the resolution process would be publicised in all its details and then the process would continue under the roof of the Turkish Grand National Assembly.
Now, why did I tell you all this?
Öcalan had serious concerns and suspicions about the intentions of Erdoğan
Öcalan turned to me in one of our latest meetings and said, “You are elected people, you represent the will of the people and you are out there. I, on the other hand, am here on an island, striving for peace with limited means, doing my best. I am sincere and serious about this. But if you realise that the government is trying to deceive me, you, the people, that they are being insincere and using the process for their own interests, the responsibility lies with you. If I cannot be reached, they should not be allowed to deceive the public.”
Because Öcalan had serious concerns and suspicions about the intentions of Erdoğan and the AKP government and he was not wrong. The fact that he was provided with a ‘home-like’ environment in prison only added to his suspicions. And yes, unfortunately, none of us were wrong about this.
On 28 February 2015, after the peace accord was announced in the prime minister’s office in Dolmabahçe, Erdoğan said three times that he had ended the resolution process. How?
On 14 March he said “There is no such thing as the Kurdish issue”, on 15 March he said “What Kurdish issue? There is no such thing anymore,” and on 17 March, “Turkey has no Kurdish issue”.
Now I ask you this; is it possible to conduct a resolution process for an issue that does not exist? Erdoğan thought that “If there is no problem, then there is no resolution process” and with these words, he clearly stated that he had ended the resolution process.
Erdoğan was not interested in the laying down of arms
Let’s take a brief look at what happened next.
On 20 March, Erdoğan denied the peace accord, which he knew word by word and had intervened in, down to the seating arrangements of the meetings, saying, “To be honest, I am not aware of such a thing.”
In the same speech, he denied the existence of the wise people delegation that he knew name by name and said that he was not aware of such a delegation. “What would it change if a group was sent there or not?” he said.
The atmosphere became so tense that Bülent Arınç, the government spokesman at the time, came out and said, “Our president knows everything very well. It is not possible that he is not aware of these.”
Erdoğan was not interested in the laying down of arms, only in announcing it before the elections.
There were elections in June and Erdoğan’s only concern was to become the “president”. He wanted to take Öcalan’s declaration of laying down arms before the elections, turn it into votes and win 400 parliamentary seats to change the Constitution on his own and become the “president”. When things didn’t go as he had planned, he started to say that there was no Kurdish issue, denied the Dolmabahçe Accord which he knew by every detail, and ignored the wise people delegation which included people who he himself especially wanted.
Öcalan, on the other hand, insisted on acting according to the previously agreed timetable. Thinking, “If this announcement will not be made before the elections and if it will not be useful for me in the elections, what should I do with such a resolution process?” Erdoğan ended the resolution process and started his election campaign.
“No votes, no peace”
After the last meeting on 5 April, he suspended all talks with Öcalan. During the three weeks before that, we tried 12 times to meet Erdoğan and convince him.
We repeatedly met with ministers and Hakan Fidan and told them, “Either you convince Erdoğan or let us meet with him,” but Erdoğan had made up his mind. He was willing to throw away years of work, hopes for peace, and everything just to become the “president” and he said “No votes, no peace”.
It was during those days that I said, “If that’s the case, we won’t make you president.” This slogan was a refined version of the official policy and spirit of our party at that time. And with that spirit, we passed the electoral threshold and took the parliamentary majority from the AKP. In other words, while Erdoğan wanted 400, he fell below 300 MPs. Afterwards, we have all painfully experienced the horror that took place between the two elections on 7 June and 1 November 2015, and we all know how we have come to this day.
In other words, he is so hostile to us because we did not fall for the games of Erdoğan’s reign and we disrupted his plans. Not because he is patriotic or nationalist, not because he wants peace.
Vote for change
I would like to end with a call to all the people. Dear brothers and sisters, do not worry. We will definitely achieve peace and tranquillity, we will live together as brothers and sisters. The person who has been preventing this to this day is Erdoğan.
On 14 May, go to the polls and give a lesson to this person, who has caused so much oppression and turned the country into hell just for his own seat in the palace, give him the lesson of democracy he deserves. Use your vote for change.
The issue is not whether I get out of jail or not, I would stay in jail for a hundred years for my people, but Erdoğan’s problem is not with “Selo”, it is with the seat. Isn’t it clear enough?
Selahattin Demirtaş – Edirne Prison