Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Bafel Talabani has called on the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to work on achieving peace between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), ending four decades of active conflict.
Talabani, speaking at a panel discussion in Iraqi Kurdish capital Erbil (Hewler), said the KDP and PUK “should help our brothers and sisters in Rojava under bombardment every day”.
“If Mam Jalal was able to do it, why can’t we?” Talabani asked, invoking his father, the famous Kurdish politician and former president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, who had helped broker a peace deal in 1993.
The PUK leader called for unity under the Kurdistan flag, and Kurds working together.
“Baghdad is willing to cooperate with us,” Kurdish news platform Rudaw cited Talabani as saying. “They only have one request, they are saying we will do our job and you do yours.”
Earlier in the week, Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Executive Council Co-chair Cemil Bayık told Kurdish Peace Institute that “a purely military solution is not possible for either the Turkish state or the PKK”.
The United States signalling similarly that a military solution would not work is “very valuable”, Bayık said, expressing that Kurds were “both willing and ready” for a solution to the issue and calling for renewed negotiations between jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and Turkey.
Washington and the international community “should put pressure on Turkey … and encourage a democratic political solution”, Bayık said.
On Thursday, the PUK also met with Kurdish powers in the region, including Kurdistan Patriots Party, National Reconstruction Movement, Kurdistan Greens, Democratic Progressive Party and Kurdistan Peace Movement, according to Roj News, to discuss elections.
Meanwhile, Talabani himself met with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
