Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy and Equality (DEM) Party remains committed to the message of peace shared by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan in 2013, the party’s co-chair, Tülay Hatimoğulları, said on Wednesday.
Hatimoğulları criticised the Turkish government’s readiness for a major cross-border military operation in Iraqi Kurdistan and its perceived manipulation of the Kurdish issue for electoral gains. She stressed the necessity for dialogue to resolve the long-standing Kurdish conflict through democratic means.
Her remarks were made at the Newroz celebrations in Ağrı (Agirî) under the theme ‘Now is the time for freedom’, where she emphasised the demand for an end to the isolation of Öcalan and a revival of the peace process.
In her speech, Hatimoğulları invoked the spirit of resistance and the healing passage of time, quoting the writer Yaşar Kemal: “The most beautiful poem is a poem of peace when even mountains, people and death grow tired.”
She highlighted the upcoming local elections on 31 March as a crucial opportunity to renew peace talks in Turkey, while acknowledging Öcalan’s liberation as key to peace and democracy in the country.
The celebrations also included the traditional lighting of the Newroz fire, a symbol of resistance and hope, with dancing participants reflecting a collective desire for freedom and peace.
Öcalan’s 2013 Peace Letter, read in both Turkish and Kurdish during the Newroz celebrations in Diyarbakır (Amed), became a symbol of the moment when peace seemed within reach during a short-lived peace process between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
