PKK Leader To Be Given Status 'Official Negotiator,' Daily Claims

AYDIN ALBAYRAK
The imprisoned leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) will be given the status of “official negotiator” in talks as part of a settlement process launched to resolve the country's decades-old Kurdish issue, a daily said on Friday.
“Following the protests [recently held in solidarity with the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani], it has been agreed that the PKK leader be given the status of ‘negotiator',” the Taraf daily said.
The daily, which maintained that it had received insider information about the deal between the government and PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, said, “From now on, Öcalan will be the official negotiator of the Kurdish people.”
A “truth commission,” which Öcalan has long demanded, will also be established if all goes according to plan, the report also said. After the commission is formed, representatives from the Turkish security forces and leading PKK commanders will appear before the commission for “self-criticism,” criticizing themselves for what wrongs they had committed in the past, such as killing civilians.
Öcalan's alleged position as “official negotiator” for the Kurdish side came a week after violent protests that are feared to have disrupted the settlement process.
Turkey saw violent demonstrations by sympathizers of the PKK who protested the government's inaction towards members of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, who have been defending the Syrian Kurdish town of Ayn al-Arab (Kobani in Kurdish) against the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Following the widespread protests last week, in which 37 people died, two of them police officers shot dead by the PKK, both the government and deputies of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) announced that the settlement process was still intact.
The messages Öcalan sent, whilst in jail, to HDP Co-chairman Selahattin Demirtaş played a major role in appeasing the violent protests. According to the report, the settlement process was discussed between Öcalan and state officials ahead of Öcalan's message calling for calm.
Both sides reportedly agreed that Öcalan would be the only person in charge of negotiations representing the PKK. Noting that it was Öcalan's wish to be the negotiator, it was agreed that Öcalan would be referred to as “negotiator” in the official documents, the report said, “From now on, Öcalan will be the person to be contacted in all official and non-official negotiations the Kurdish side conducts with the state.” This situation will also be communicated in a message to top PKK people in the Kandil Mountains, to the HDP and all other Kurdish civil society organizations, the report added.
According to Sedat Laçiner, rector of Çanakkale University and a security analyst, it is wrong for the state to directly contact the leader of a terrorist organization, as this would lead to its legitimization.
“The state should avoid steps that lead to the legitimization of terrorism,” Laçiner told Today's Zaman, noting that the state could have contacted Öcalan indirectly to develop the settlement process.
The government has been much criticized for conducting the settlement process behind closed doors.
Faruk Loğoğlu, a deputy from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), accused the government, in a written statement on Friday, of having contributed nothing substantial to the process other than perception management aimed at securing election victories.
“The content of the process is not clear,” Loğoğlu said, criticizing the government for keeping the opposition parties totally in the dark about the process.
Various reports published in the Turkish media in the past claimed Öcalan would be removed from prison and kept under house arrest at a later stage of the process before being granted freedom following a general amnesty.
Noting that such claims were on the agenda following last week's violent demonstrations, the report said the issue was not discussed during the latest talks between state officials and Öcalan.
The only points under consideration, according to the report, are providing Öcalan with a secretary to make it easier for him to conduct settlement negotiations, and the removal of Öcalan from prison on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara to a prison in the province of Ankara to facilitate his communication with representatives of the HDP and the press.
The report said state officials agreed that his demands would be realized stage by stage, but Beşir Atalay, spokesman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), dismissed on Thursday speculation that Öcalan would be moved to a prison in another city.
"This is out of the question," he said at a press conference, but added that there would be "developments" concerning the process "in the coming days.” “I don't want to discuss elements of the roadmap before a government announcement," he said.
Analysts are concerned that the terrorist PKK, which has so far emerged victorious in the process, would be obtaining concessions from the government without having to lay down its arms.
“The process has been progressing as per the demands of the PKK,” Mahmut Akpınar, a political scientist at the Ankara-based Center of Law, Ethics and Political Studies (HESA), told Today's Zaman.
Laçiner of Çanakkale University is also a little skeptical about the success of the process. He said, “With such steps to be taken, the demands of Öcalan will have been met with no guarantee that the PKK terrorism will end.”
A minor portion of the roadmap for the process was recently presented to the HDP deputies by the government. An HDP delegation will pay a visit this weekend to the PKK headquarters in the Kandil Mountains in Iraq to discuss the plan that the government has apparently agreed on with Öcalan. Upon their return the delegation will visit Öcalan in prison on Oct. 21.
In a statement to the Al Jazeera Turk news portal, Pervin Buldan, an HDP parliamentary group deputy chairwoman, said the first item of the roadmap was the “start of negotiations.” Buldan said that for the negotiations to begin Öcalan should be provided with better conditions in prison and be allowed to meet with members of the media as well as representatives of nongovernmental organizations.
Akpınar criticized the government for conducting the process with the PKK rather than with Kurds, paving the way for the PKK to get stronger. (Cihan/Today’s Zaman)