Following the meeting of Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) MPs Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Pervin Buldan with PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan, Öcalan's 7-point message was made public. Political Scientist Prof. Dr. Levent Köker, who evaluated the meeting and the recent discussions on the Kurdish issue, said that the dynamics of this process are different from the process carried out between 2013 and 2015. 

 

Stating that MHP Chair Devlet Bahçeli's statements were a surprise not only for the Turkish nationalist community but also for the general public, Köker stressed that Bahçeli's role in this process. Drawing attention to the discussions initiated and continued by Bahçeli and the course of development of the process, Köker said, “DEM Party representatives and Öcalan met in İmralı. After the meeting, a statement was made and Öcalan's message was announced to the public and it seems that a process has begun in which new meetings will take place.” 

 

Pointing out that the latest situation has emerged as a result of the developments in Syria, Köker stated that the government's statements seem to aim at the liquidation of the PKK and the YPG. Evaluating the developments as an attempt by the government against the possibility of the Kurds obtaining a status in Rojava, Köker said, “It is understood that we are facing an attempt by the political power in Turkey, which does not want this, against the possibility of Rojava obtaining a status in the context of the fall of the Assad regime and the reconstruction of the political-constitutional system in Syria. However, it is also seen that the process that started with Bahçeli's call and aims to liquidate the PKK and PYD/YPG for the People's Alliance will not be so simple. The most important sign of this is the statement made by DEM Party representatives after their meeting with Öcalan. In the views conveyed in this statement, Öcalan uses words and terms of critical importance in a way that, in my opinion, is deliberately selective."

 

Interpreting the statements as “the start of a new process”, Köker stated that Öcalan's message largely preserved the emphases and demands of the Dolmabahçe Consensus announced on February 28, 2015. "In any case, the final address for a holistic solution to the Kurdish issue is the Turkish Grand National Assembly. In my opinion, Öcalan also emphasizes this,” he said and stressed that Abdullah Öcalan's call is a call for the Turkish-Kurdish unity to be handled in the context of the renewal that is necessary for the construction of the Turkish-Kurdish unity on the basis of equal citizenship. 

 

Köker stated that in order to speak of an internal peace, it is essential to build a legal order in which all citizens are equal before the law and can rule the laws that bind them with their free will directly or through their representatives. Stating that the process leading to the declaration of the Republic was laid out in the 1921 Constitution, Köker continued, “According to this Constitution, state administration in Turkey is based on the principle of the people's personal and actual management of their own destiny and is realized through the autonomy of local governments. This approach was later abandoned, starting in 1924, and a constitutional order based on an over-centralized and Turkish nationalism was established. The basic paradigm of the Republic of Turkey is this paradigm, which I would call Turkish nationalism and over-centralization. It is impossible for this paradigm to solve the Kurdish issue or to achieve internal peace. This impossibility has been proven by the history of the past century. Now is the time for a new paradigm and a democratic transformation based on this paradigm. I hope that the process, even if initiated by the government with the narrow perspective of conflict resolution, will find the opportunity to develop towards achieving such a transformation.”

 

MA / Delal Akyüz