The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) still believes in the declaration of intent made in February 2015, and it was not they who “overturned the table and attacked”, top PKK official Murat Karayılan told Stêrk TV in an interview.
“We remain committed to the Dolmabahçe Accord,” Karayılan said, referring to the 10-point declaration listing the key points of principle for the democratisation of Turkey and the resolution of the Kurdish issue. “We have not strayed. They [the Turkish government] wanted to make their hold on power permanent on the basis of Kurdish blood. They overturned the table and attacked us to that end.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) “wanted to disband and destroy us. They did not want to build an alliance with the Kurds or to accept us. They did not want to accept the Kurdish people’s identity.”
“Erdoğan turned the truth on its head in Amed,” Karayılan said. On Saturday, in a speech at a de facto campaign rally in the Kurdish-majority Diyarbakır (Amed) province, Erdoğan had accused Kurdish politicians and the PKK of “biting the hand that we extended to them” and “attempting to drive a knife into the heart we opened to them”.
“They are an army of murderers for hire that anybody who pays their fees can use against Turkey,” Erdoğan said. “What else would you call those who point guns at their own people and lands for the interests of whoever has their arm in theirs?”
The 2013 peace process began with a message from the jailed founding leader of the PKK Abdullah Öcalan being read out loud during Newroz celebrations in Diyarbakır, and ended after the death of two police officers in the summer of 2015. While the PKK assumed responsibility for the deaths at first, a spokesperson denounced them a week later. The 40-year-long conflict between Turkey and the PKK resumed with the Turkish armed forces launching an operation in Iraqi Kurdistan in late July.
“As long as the Turkish state remains in a position of war against the Kurdish people, i.e., unless peace is established, democracy will not thrive in Turkey, and neither will the country’s economy improve,” Karayılan told Stêrk TV, criticising the main Turkish opposition for their stance on the Kurdish issue ahead of the 14 May elections.
The opposition’s Nation Alliance has put forth detailed policy positions, but their “thousand-page writings and books” do not include projects for Kurds, he continued.
It is “the most important matter” that the forces of democracy empower themselves, Karayılan said. “If they can be more influential in Turkey’s politics, they can clear the path to many things. For that, they must rely on their own strength, without expecting anything from anybody else.”
There is not room for “too much dreaming” regarding the coming elections, Karayılan said. “However, the left-wing forces of democracy in Turkey and the Kurdish people can get much stronger in this process.”
Turkey’s democratic forces and the Kurds can become “a will to resolve problems” if they can unite and work together, he added.
Karayılan also accused the AKP and the election bloc it leads, the People’s Alliance, of being “an alliance of thieves and murderers”. Ruling alliance MPs seek parliamentary seats “to get rich, to steal, to put their relatives in high places,” he said, calling on Kurds not to vote for the AKP, which wins almost half of the Kurdish vote in the country. “And has anybody got rich after getting elected with Kurds or democrats? No. They go to parliament to serve. Some even face prosecution and arrest. Our people should see this distinction.”
