Akın Birdal, a member of the Social Initiative for Peace and Honorary President of the Human Rights Association (İHD), said that they will apply for a meeting with PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan. Commenting on the work of the Social Initiative for Peace, which also includes literary figures, academics and politicians, Akın Birdal told Mezopotamya Agency (MA) that all the opportunities created in the past for the solution of the Kurdish issue were wasted.

 

Reminding that as a group of intellectuals, journalists, writers and politicians they had called for a democratic peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue on 14 December, Birdal said, "Because everyone is responsible for Turkey's current state of war, conflict, human rights violations and failure to transform into a democratic regime. Therefore, it is the responsibility of all of us to get out of this darkness."

 

Birdal stated that they had requested appointments with the Speaker of the Parliament, the CHP chair, the DEM Party İmralı Delegation and the DEM co-chairs, and that their meetings with Pervin Buldan of the İmralı Delegation and the DEM Party co-chairs had been positive. Birdal stated that as an initiative they would also visit other political parties, labour organisations, employers' organisations, etc. Birdal said that they might apply for an appointment with PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan.

 

Birdal said that Abdullah Öcalan's messages reflected to the public were very important and added, "They were especially about democratic transformation, democratisation and peace and that everyone should be involved in this process. But unfortunately, on the other hand, it is not named by the government and the language of peace was not formed."

 

'ISOLATION IS INSISTENCE ON INSOLVENCY'

 

Stating that the main address for the solution of the problem is the Parliament, Birdal said, "I think a commission should be formed in the parliament with the opposition and the governemnt. This commission should undertake the task of reconciliation between the parties. This commission should immediately put this process into a legal framework, draw up an agenda and determine when and what will be done. People should move forward knowing that this will be done at this time. The process should not be made uncertain. Uncertainty leads to despair, so in order not to interrupt hope, what is wanted should be made known with a road agenda."

 

Birdal stated that a civil, democratic, libertarian, social consensus document should aim for a Turkey where everyone can live equally and freely with their own language, identity, belief and culture, and emphasised that the guarantee for this should be the constitution.

 

Stating that it is possible that a message of peace given by the government would immediately create public opinion through the partisan media, Birdal noted that the ongoing isolation in İmralı has not come to an end. Birdal said, "This isolation must end. The insistence on this isolation is also an insistence on the lack of a solution to the Kurdish problem. It reveals the lack of intention. In this sense, the democratic public opinion, labour organisations, in other words, everyone has a responsibility in this problem. We must use our responsibility to get rid of it."

 

MA / Müjdat Can