Six years have passed since Turkish President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ended the Dolmabahçe Process by saying “There is no consensus”. The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has now published a written statement for the anniversary of the Dolmabahçe Consensus, as reported by the Mesopotamia News Agency.
“For the sake of the AKP’s continued dominance, the party rejected the Dolmabahçe Consensus and preferred another agreement made with Büyükanıt”, stated the HDP.
Describing the Dolmabahçe Consensus as a solution to the hundred-year-old Kurdish question, the HDP argued for the democratic origins of the consensus. “This agreement is not an agreement reached between the HDP and the AKP, or between Mr Öcalan and the AKP, as claimed. However, it was a consensus reached between Mr Öcalan and the state delegation on behalf of all the components of the Kurdish movement”.
The HDP pointed out that due to the war politics of Turkey, the country has been going through dark days for the last six years. Referencing the 15 July coup attempt, decree laws, trustee regimes, the ongoing economic crisis, and many other problems in Turkey, the HDP claimed that ending the Dolmabahçe process did nothing to improve the state of the country. “As the HDP, we are still committed to the Dolmabahçe Consensus. We declare that we will continue our struggle in Turkey until we reach a democratic solution”.
Dolmabahçe Consensus
The Dolmabahçe Consensus was written by Abdullah Öcalan and was announced by the state and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) delegation in Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul. AKP Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan, Interior Minister Efkan Ala, Mahir Ünal, HDP Deputies Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Pervin Buldan and İdris Baluken were present during the declaration of the consensus.
The ten articles of the Dolmabahçe Consensus are as follows:
1 – The content of democratic politics should be discussed.
2 – The national and local dimensions of the democratic solution should be defined.
3 – Legal and democratic guarantees of free citizenship.
4 – Topics regarding the relation of democratic politics with the state and society and the institutionalisation of those.
5 – Socioeconomic dimensions of the solution process.
6 – Democracy-security relations in the solution process should be handled in such a way as to enhance public order and freedom.
7 – Legal solutions and guarantees for the issues of women, culture, and ecology.
8 – A pluralistic democratic mentality regarding the recognition of the concept of identity should be developed.
9 – Democratic republic, common homeland, and the concept of a nation should be defined based on democratic criteria and preserved in the pluralistic democratic system with legal and constitutional guarantees.
10 – The new constitution should be designed to serve the internalisation of all these democratic moves and transformations.
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