Bayık Says PKK Won't Lay Down Arms Unless Gov't Takes Concrete Steps

Cemil Bayık, the head of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) and the “number two” man in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has stated that the PKK is ready to lay down its arms if the government is willing to do its fair share of the work, rather than using the situation as propaganda ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections.

“At this point, we would like to resolve the Kurdish issue by political means rather than armed resistance. We have set out 10 conditions for laying down arms. If the government is willing to go through those conditions, we are ready to end armed resistance,” Bayık said in an exclusive interview with Denge TV on Monday.

A 10-point list of principles on which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government must agree in order for the PKK to lay down its arms was recently released by Selahattin Demirtaş, the co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

The principles are as follows: The definition and content of democratic politics must be debated; what needs to be done for the national and local dimensions of democratic settlement; the legal and democratic assurances of free citizenship; the relationship between democratic politics and the state, and society and its institutionalization; the socioeconomic dimensions of the settlement process; the new security structure arising from the settlement process; the solving of problems and the legal assurances pertaining to women's [rights], culture and ecology; the concept, definition and development of pluralist, democratic and equal mechanisms to acknowledge identity; the definition of concepts of democratic state, common land and the nation by democratic means, their legal and constitutional rights enshrined in the pluralist democratic system; and a new constitution aiming to internalize all of the above democratic moves and transformations.

“Those conditions are not just for the solution of the Kurdish problem. Those conditions contain democratization for almost all the problems in Turkey. Thus, they are embraced by the Turkish nation. The majority of Turks are now in favor of these conditions. Moreover, some monitoring committee and observation groups must be established to monitor the implementation of those conditions,” Bayık said.

Bayık previously said in an interview published on March 16 in the Taraf daily that the PKK has six conditions that the government should meet for the PKK to lay down its arms. According to Bayık, the government sponsored security package that “‘includes fascist articles should be withdrawn from Parliament'.”

He revealed the PKK's conditions: “New military guard posts should not be constructed in the southeastern part of the country. Ankara should change its stance against the Kurds in Kobani. Turkey should develop peaceful political and economic relations with Kobani. Direct communication should be established between Abdullah Öcalan [the jailed leader of the PKK] and Kandil [the PKK militants' mountain base]. And finally, the negotiations should officially be launched. If all these conditions are applied, then our arms might be silenced."

Öcalan called on the outlawed group to convene a spring conference about laying down its arms, the HDP announced on Feb. 28 in a landmark step geared towards ending the PKK's 30-year-old armed campaign. However, top PKK officials have not yet taken any concrete steps towards that cause. The call for the PKK's disarmament follows two years of talks between the Turkish state and Öcalan as part of a “settlement process” aimed at resolving the Kurdish issue peacefully.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)