HDP Leader Demirtaş Calls For Return To Peace Talks To Quell Violence

Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş has called for a return to negotiations for the resolution of Turkey's decades-old Kurdish issue, saying the only way to save Turkey from the recent outbreak of violence that has erupted between Turkish security forces and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is through the restart of the settlement process.

“The settlement process should be restarted. The parties should be invited to the [negotiation] table. A call to the table instead of calling for the surrender of [PKK militants] is more conscientious and ethical,” Demirtaş said on Friday, adding that the settlement process is so fragile that it cannot wait for snap elections.

“Keep your hands off the trigger, for the sake of Turkey, to end the violence. You should call for a return to the negotiating table that took so much trouble to be formed. If you disrupt the channels [of negotiations], you cause violence,” the HDP politician stated.

PKK-related tension in southeast Turkey grew after a suicide bomber carried out an attack in Suruç, a town in Şanlıurfa province, on July 20, killing 32 activists and injuring more than 100. Two police officers were shot in the head by PKK members on July 22 in retaliation for the terrorist attack in Suruç. The violence and PKK-led attacks further escalated when Turkey carried out air strikes against PKK bases in neighboring Iraq.

In his remarks before departing for China on Tuesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said it was impossible to continue a peace process with the PKK and that politicians with links to "terrorist groups" should be stripped of their immunity from prosecution.

Demirtaş also called on Parliament to lift the immunity of all 550 deputies from prosecution.

“Dragging the country into a snap election to form a single-party government will be treason,” Demirtaş concluded.

Some Kurds say that by reviving open conflict with the PKK, Erdoğan is seeking to undermine support for the HDP ahead of a possible early election and to stoke up nationalist sentiment.

Demirtaş: We do not approve of PKK's aggression

Demirtaş said in an interview with the Germany-based ZDF TV network that he and his party have never approved of the PKK organization's recent campaign of violence against members of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), police officers and civilians.

“We have always kept our distance from any kind of act of violence. They [the Justice and Development Party or AK Party and other political parties] are trying to create an atmosphere as if we [HDP] are in favor of violence and terror. This way they think we will lose an important part of 13 percent of the vote they had in the election,” Demirtaş stated.

The HDP won a surprise 13 percent of the vote in the June 7 general election, helping to deprive the AK Party, which Erdoğan founded, from a majority in Parliament for the first time since 2002. Kurds make up nearly 20 percent of Turkey's population of 77 million.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)