Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) leader Massoud Barzani was absent from Sunday’s congress of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) despite an earlier invitation having been sent to his office by the pro-Kurdish party.
Instead, Barzani was represented by Ashti Hawrami, the natural resources minister of Iraq’s KRG. Barham Salih, a senior politician in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), also participated in the congress.The pro-Kurdish BDP convened at the Ahmet Taner Kışlalı Sports Hall in the Turkish capital on Sunday for its second extraordinary congress that would elect the party’s new co-chairpersons. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) did not send representatives to observe the event as the BDP had not sent them invitations. The BDP invited other political parties, including the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), to the congress.
Barzani was one of the many foreign guests at the AK Party congress in late September.
Delivering a speech at the event, BDP Co-chairwoman Gülten Kışanak renewed her party’s call for a solution to the long-standing Kurdish question. “Let’s stand side by side at funeral ceremonies of [slain] soldiers and guerillas [terrorists] and shout against more deaths to come,” she said. She also pointed to Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as the interlocutor for discussions with the state for the settlement of the Kurdish problem. “Öcalan is the leader of the Kurdish people. He is also the leader of the PKK. He is a chance for peace for both Kurds and Turks,” she said.
On the walls of the sports hall were Turkish flags accompanied with posters of Öcalan. The terrorist leader’s brother and sister — Mehmet Öcalan and Havva Öcalan — were also among the participants at the event. When the names of the two were announced, the audience chanted, “Tooth for tooth, blood for blood, we are with you Öcalan.”
Kışanak also called on the government to end the imprisonment of Öcalan, who has been kept in a prison on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara since he was captured in 1998. “The Kurdish people have reasonable demands [from the state]. One of those demands is granting freedom to Öcalan. … He has been kept in solitary confinement in a cell for 13 years,” she stated.
Speeches delivered during the congress were simultaneously translated into English and some dialects of Kurdish, including Sorani and Kurmanji. The speeches were often interrupted by the audience chanting slogans in favor of Öcalan. One masked audience member opened up a poster of the terrorist leader. An announcement by the party administration called on the audience member to drop the poster by saying, “There is no need to hide your face and do such things [open posters] because the people in this hall already stand by the esteemed Öcalan.”
BDP Co-chairman Selahattin Demirtaş also addressed participants at the congress and said they were ready for the solution to the Kurdish question but complained that his party cannot find “courageous interlocutors” for the discussion of possible solutions to the question. He also recalled earlier remarks by the police chief in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır who had said whoever does not cry for terrorists killed by security forces in the mountains is not a human being. “We will cry for guerillas as well as soldiers killed. Those who do not cry for them will not laugh with others when peace comes to [the country],” Demirtaş added.
After the speeches, party delegates began casting votes to elect the party’s new chairpersons.
(Today’s Zaman)
