People’s Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Mithat Sancar spoke during his party’s group meeting at the Turkish assembly today. He evaluated Turkey’s offensive against Garê mountains and the killing of 13 prisoners during the bombardments by Turkey.
Sancar started his sentence by wishing God’s mercy on those who lost their lives and held the government responsible for the loss.
“The government has a very clear and heavy political responsibility. It has to account for this” said the HDP co-Chair.
“We are again talking about deaths since a democratic solution and peace cannot be achieved in the Kurdish issue.” He stated and drew attention to the statements made by the Turkish Minister of Defence Hulusi Akar about the deaths of 13 Turkish citizens.
“There was contradictory information about the bodies when the minister first informed the public, but later it was revealed that those people are the detainees who were kept by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),” he said and asked whether this was execution by the PKK or the deaths happened as a result of the bombardments.
‘We need to reveal how deaths occured to achieve peace’
“What we need is the truth. We need to reveal how exactly these deaths occurred without any doubt. If we cannot reveal it, we can achieve neither justice nor peace ” he said.
He drew attention to the responsibility of the government in the operation and said that the deaths could have been prevented.
“ The government is responsible in at least two points. First, the way that the operation was conducted and the secondly why were options other than a full scale military operations not taken into account.”
He mentioned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statements regarding the operation.
“As we have understood from what Erdoğan has said, the operation was conducted to save the prisoners. If the goal was to rescue these prisoners, then should the operation be done this way? Was it possible to save these people under these conditions?”
President Erdoğan openly says that the operation has failed, but who will be held responsible for this failure asked Sancar and continued:
“The families of these 13 people have tried every way to save their loved ones. There are always other ways to save these people. If the aim was to save human life, then alternative methods should have been tried” he said.
‘The deaths could be prevented’
He mentioned the previous examples of when human rights organisations and political party representatives played a critical role that prevented deaths, Sancar recalled:
“The Diyarbakır Branch of the Human Rights Association prepared a report on the people abducted by the PKK covering the years 1990-2010. According to the report, 335 people were detained in 22 years. As a result of the initiatives we just mentioned, all 335 people could meet with their families safely.” He said.
Refering to the attacks and operations against the HDP in relation to the death of the prisoners, Sancar said:
“The government use our party as a scapegoat to cover up their own responsibility for the prisoners deaths. The position of the HDP is clear, we want a democratic solution and peace. We are the guarantor of peace in this country.”
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