HDP To Hold Parliamentary Group Meetings In Tense Cizre

The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has announced it will hold its parliamentary group meeting scheduled for Sept. 11 in the southeastern province of Şırnak, where the conflict between the Turkish army and the terrorist Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) continues.

HDP parliamentary group deputy chairman İdris Baluken, speaking to the media on Friday, refuted claims that the HDP will contact the PKK to call on it to declare a cease-fire with the Turkish army, calling the claims “speculation.”

Baluken said the HDP would be holding the next parliamentary group meeting, scheduled for Sept. 11, in Cizre, a town in the predominantly Kurdish populated southeastern province of Şırnak.

Daily says HDP will call on PKK to initiate cease-fire, HDP denies claim

The Cumhuriyet daily claimed on Friday that the HDP administration is considering calling on the terrorist PKK, which has been carrying out terrorist attacks on Turkish security forces, to declare a cease-fire.

Cumhuriyet reported that HDP deputies and the party's Central Executive Board (MYK) members have been debating the conflict that has been taking place between the PKK and Turkish security forces for the past several months, during the MYK and party group meetings with HDP Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş at the helm.

According to Cumhuriyet's sources, HDP deputies from the conflict region -- southeast Turkey -- commented on the country's increasing tension during these meetings, some arguing that it can reach extremely dangerous levels, significantly threatening the lives of civilians. The general intent in these meetings has been to stop the bloodshed, with some deputies even proposing that all 80 HDP deputies in Parliament should carry out a joint demonstration, asking both Turkish security forces and the PKK to cease fire. Furthermore, an HDP committee is expected to be formed in order to make contact with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan who, according to many, is the only figure that can make the PKK declare a cease-fire.

Ayhan Bilgen, the spokesperson of the HDP, has denied the claims.

Talking in a news program on Habertürk TV on July 14, Demirtaş pointed to the insufficiency of his efforts in asking the PKK lay down its arms. “I am making a call from here: The PKK must absolutely lay down its arms against Turkey. But my call is not the solution. Who must make the call for the PKK to lay down its arms? Öcalan must,” Demirtaş said.

The prospective HDP committee is expected to directly communicate with the PKK leadership and tell it the party's will and stance while asking the PKK to announce a unilateral cease-fire or a stop to the PKK offensive which will draw the terrorist organization back to a defensive line. The discussions in this regard will continue in future HDP group meetings and the party's MYK meetings, Cumhuriyet reported.

Meanwhile in a development that supports the HDP's concerns over the increasing tension and the necessity for a PKK cease-fire announcement, one of the top leaders of the PKK, Murat Karayılan, reportedly apologized for the “accidental” death of two civilians. Sharing parts of his interview that will be published on Friday night -- after Today's Zaman goes to print -- the interviewer Amed Dicle from Stêrk TV posted Karayılan's words on his Twitter account, stating: “The families of Fırat Sınpil and Dr. Biroğlu should know that this is a total accident. We share their deep grief.”

Sınpil, a 14-year-old boy, was killed last week after PKK terrorists detonated a bomb while a military convoy was passing by in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır. Also in Diyarbakır last week, Abdullah Biroğlu, a doctor at a health center in the province's Kulp district, died after PKK terrorists began firing at his car when trying to escape from a PKK road block.

Turkey has been witnessing increasing tension between the security forces and the PKK since a bomb attack in the southeastern town of Suruç on July 20, which took 34 lives. Blaming the government for not being able to prevent the bombing, the PKK began carrying out attacks on Turkish security personnel. Immediately after the PKK's armed attacks, the interim Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government announced the end of the peace process that was launched by the AK Party two years ago to settle the country's historic Kurdish issue with the PKK leadership.

Many people, including the leadership of the opposition parties, have heavily criticized the AK Party for deliberately dragging Turkey into chaos with the aim to convince people that single-party rule should be re-established in order to have stability. The AK Party's 13-year single-party rule ended with the June 7 parliamentary election. The AK Party was given the mandate to form a coalition government with other opposition parties in Parliament following the election, but failed to do so.

CHP deputies unveil Şırnak report: Weapons must be silenced

Republican People's Party (CHP) deputies have released a report calling for the cessation of the conflict between the army and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

CHP Balıkesir deputy Namık Havutça, İstanbul deputy Mahmut Tanal and Bursa deputy Ceyhun İrgil released the report on Friday, in which they consulted bar associations, municipalities, industry and commerce chambers, and civil society organizations from southeast Turkey on the situation of the conflict between the state and the PKK.

Underlining that the PKK must immediately lay down all weapons, Havutça told the Cihan news agency: “The report will be handed in to the headquarters of the CHP. The weapons must be silenced. The PKK must surrender its weapons to the security forces. The settlement process, the peace process, the brotherhood process must continue in Parliament; there are no problems that cannot be solved under this sacred roof [of Parliament].”

The settlement process was launched by the government at the end of October 2012 in cooperation with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to settle the country's long-standing terrorism problem and the Kurdish issue in its predominantly Kurdish southeastern provinces.

Nearly 40,000 people have been killed in clashes with the PKK since 1984, when the armed group launched its first attacks. The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by the US, the European Union and Turkey.

On Friday, Minority Rights Group International (MRG), a civil society organization, said in a press release that it “is extremely concerned by the ongoing violence between state security forces and the PKK in Turkey, urges an immediate resolution to the crisis, and a resumption of the peace process.”

“Both sides in the conflict need to declare a cease-fire before many more people lose their lives. The Turkish government must also turn the current dialogue with the PKK into official negotiations, with a view to resuming the peace process, and preserving a cease-fire,” Nurcan Kaya, MRG's Turkey project coordinator, said in the statement.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)