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United Nations News Centre – Turkey: Ban welcomes call for ceasefire and withdrawal by Kurdish armed group

A wide view of Shanidar Cave in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. UN Photo/Bikem Ekberzade

22 March 2013 – Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the call by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group operating out of northern Iraq, for a cease-fire and withdrawal of its forces from Turkish territory.

“This is a positive step towards putting an end to the deadly conflict that has brought much suffering and grief to the people of Turkey,” Mr Ban’s spokesperson said in response to questions from correspondents.

“The Secretary-General hopes that this call will be fully implemented and that it will result in a lasting peaceful settlement,” he added, affirming that the UN stands prepared to support the people of Turkey in what he called “this important process.”

via United Nations News Centre – Turkey: Ban welcomes call for ceasefire and withdrawal by Kurdish armed group.

March 23, 2013
Full transcript of Abdullah Ocalan’s ceasefire call

Source and translation: BDP Press Office, Turkey

Let all the oppressed have a free and happy Newroz!

Greetings to all peoples of Middle East and Central Asia who celebrate newroz, the day of revival and rejoice, with the greatest participation in the world…

Greetings to all other peoples of the world who celebrate newroz, the landmark of a new era and sunshine, with enthusiasm and a democratic tolerance.

Greetings to all who take democratic right, freedom and equality as their guides…

Greetings to all Kurdish people, a folk that mothered one of the most ancient rural and urban civilizations at the lands of Mesopotamia and Anatolia from Zagros and Taurus Mountains to Tigris and Euphrates Rivers…

For Kurdish people, who coexisted peacefully and co-created this civilization with other peoples from different racial, religious, ethnic backgrounds; Tigris and Euphrates are siblings with Sakarya and Maritsa rivers. Mount Ararat and Cudi Mountain are friends of Kachkar and Erciyes Mountains. Haley and Delido dances are relatives with Horon and Zeybek dances.

This great civilization, these sister entities have been separated from each other by political oppressions, external interventions and group dynamics; they have been compelled to build entities ignoring justice, equality and freedom.

For the past 200 years, conquest wars, western imperialists interventions and oppressive mentalities have urged Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Kurdish entities to form artificial states, borderlines, problems.
The era of exploiting, oppressive ignoring mentalities is over. The peoples of Middle East and Central Asia are waking up. They are returning to their own. They are saying ‘no’ to the clashes that aim to provoke and harm each other.

Millions of people who are enthusiastically crowding for Newroz today speak of peace and fraternity, and demand a resolution.

The struggle I initiated against our collective desperation, ignorance and slavery was aiming to form a consciousness, mentality and spirit albeit all challenges.

Today, I see that this scream came to a certain point.

Our fight was never against a particular race, religion, sect or group, and it can never be.

Our fight was always against oppression, ignorance, injustice, lack of development and all sorts of pressures.

Today though, we are waking up to a new Turkey, Middle East and future.

To all youngsters who bless my call, to all women who add my message to their hearts, to all friends who consider my sayings, to all people who pay attention to what I am saying;
We have a new era starting upon us.

A door is opening from a process of armed resistance to a process of democratic politics.
A new process emphasizing on political, social and economic aspect is starting, a new mentality on democratic rights, freedoms and equality is developing.

We have sacrificed decades for this people, we have suffered great consequences. But all the sacrifice and struggle did not go unwasted. Kurdish people regained their true self-identity.

We have come to a point where we say “let the arms silence, opinions and politics speak”. The ignorant modernist paradigm has been deconstructed. The blood is dripping from this geography, regardless of Turkish, Kurdish, Laz, Circassian origin.

I, myself, am declaring in the witnessing of millions of people that a new era is beginning, arms are silencing, politics are gaining momentum. It is time for our [PKK] armed entities to withdraw from the [Turkish] border.
I strongly believe that whoever opens their heart to me, whoever believes in our struggle, will certainly consider the sensitivity of the ongoing process.

This is not an end, this is a beginning. It is not the end of our struggle, it is the start of a new sort of struggle.

Forming geographies based on a single ethnicity and nation is an inhuman invention that the modernity created to alienate us from our true selves.

Everybody is responsible for the creation of a free, democratic and egalitarian country that suits well with the history of Kurdistan and Anatolia. On the occasion of this newroz, I am calling all people with Armenian, Turkic, Assyrian, Arabic and other backgrounds to see the light of freedom and equality as much as Kurdish people do.

To people of Turkey;

Turkish people who know ancient Anatolia as Turkey should know that their coexistence with Kurdish people dates back to a historical agreement of fraternity and solidarity under the flag of Islam.

In the real sense, this spirit of solidarity does not and must not contain conquest, denial, forced assimilation and annihilation.

The politics of oppression, annihilation and assimilation represent the effort of an isolated elitist government that deny the existing history and fraternity agreement.

I am inviting everyone to build the democratic modernity together, as two prominent strategic powers of Middle East, departing from our culture and civilization to emancipate ourselves from the vicious cycle of cruelty which looks obvious to contradict our history and fraternity agreement.

It is time not for opposition, conflict or contempt towards each other, it is time for cooperation, unity, embracing and mutual blessing.

During World War I, Turkish and Kurdish soldiers have fallen martyrs together in Çananakkale [Dardanelles], they have fought together in Turkey’s Independence War, and opened together the 1920 National Assembly.
What our mutual past points out is our mutual necessity of forming our future together. The spirit of 1920 National Assembly era also enlightens the upcoming era of now.

I am inviting all representatives from oppressed peoples, classes and cultures; women who have been the most exploited class of all times, oppressed religious groups, cults and other cultural entities, worker class representatives, and other individuals who are excluded by the [capitalist] system to take part, understand and acquire the democratic modernity system.

Middle East and Central Asia is currently seeking a contemporary modernity and democratic order that would address its historical context. The search for a new model where everyone could live freely and in fraternity has become one of basic human needs – like bread and water. It is inevitable that Anatolian and Mesopotamian geography, and the cultural momentum in there will build this model.

We are currently experiencing a much more complex, contemporary and profound moment than Turkish and Kurdish people experienced almost hundred years ago during the foundation of modern Turkey with the National Pact (Misak-i Milli).

This time, we are building a model on the lesson of what we learned from the mistakes of our predecessors – embracing all devastated peoples, classes and cultures. I am calling all these people to realize an organization through a more egalitarian, independent and democratic method.

I am also calling all the Kurdish, Turkmen, Assyrian and Arabic people in today’s Syria and Iraq who have been left wrongly out from the borders of the National Pact to discuss, become aware and decide on their realities on the platform of a “National Solidarity and Peace Conference”.

The broadness and inclusivity of saying “we”, an important pillar in the historical context of this geography, has been narrowed to a “singularity” under the arms of elitist administrations. It is time to give “us” its old sense spirit and practicality.

We will unite against whom are trying to divide and conquer us. We will unite against who are trying to tear us apart.

The ones who are unable to read the spirit of time will inevitable end up at the junk of history.
The peoples of the region are witnessing a new dawn. War-tired peoples of the Middle East want to be reborn and get up on their feet. This newroz is a precursor to all of us.

The prophecies uttered by Moses, Jesus and Mohammed are becoming true now, the humanity is regaining its dignity again.

We are not in a position to reject all the values of Western civilization. We are taking the values of enlightenment, freedom, equality and democracy, and synthesizing them with our own norms.
The basis of our new struggle is ideas, ideology and democratic politics, and to launch a democratic movement.

Greetings to all who give life to this process and support democratic peace!

Greetings to all who take responsibility for the fraternity, equality and democratic freedom of people!

Long live Newroz, long live the fraternity of peoples!

Abdullah Öcalan, İmralı Prison, March 21, 2013

March 23, 2013
Jailed Leader of the Kurds Offers a Truce With Turkey

By SEBNEM ARSU

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — The jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan on Thursday called for a cease-fire and ordered all his fighters off Turkish soil, in a landmark moment for a newly energized effort to end three decades of armed conflict with the Turkish government.

Since its start late last year, the peace effort has transfixed a Turkish public traumatized by a long and bloody conflict that has claimed nearly 40,000 lives and fractured society along ethnic lines. While there have been previous periods of cease-fire between Turkey and Mr. Ocalan’s group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., never before has there been so much support at the highest levels of both the Turkish and Kurdish leadership.

“We reached the point where weapons should go silent and ideas speak,” Mr. Ocalan wrote in a letter read out to jubilant crowds gathered in the Kurdish heartland here in southern Turkey. “A new era starts when politics, instead of guns, comes to the forefront.”

For the Turkish government, seeking peace within its borders is a step toward realizing its ambition to be a regional power broker. For the Kurds, the call for peace carries with it the hope of more rights under a new constitution and the freedom to express a separate identity within a country that for decades denied their existence, forbade them to speak their language and abused their activists.

The declaration by Mr. Ocalan was seen as a critical confidence-building step in the peace process. It brought ecstatic celebration among the huge crowds gathered outside Diyarbakir to celebrate Nowruz, the traditional spring festival. Lawmakers read out statements in both Turkish and Kurdish as waves of yellow, red and green, the traditional Kurdish colors, rippled through the masses.

The deal is far from done, however. Notably, while Mr. Ocalan called for militants to retreat to bases in the mountains of northern Iraq, he did not order them to disarm. And a long process of constitutional reform and negotiations over Kurdish prisoners lies ahead.

Still, if a lasting peace is achieved, there would be ramifications across the broader Middle East, where millions of Kurds also live in Syria, Iraq and Iran and have long held ambitions for independence. For nearly a century they have also nurtured a sense of betrayal: after the Allied victory in World War I, the victors first promised Kurdish independence, and then reneged.

Accordingly, it is an open question whether the Turkish Kurds’ willingness to seek greater rights within Turkey rather than hold out for independence signals that broader ambitions for a pan-Kurdish state have been tempered. The emphasis made in the letter on national unity and the will to live alongside Turks was regarded as an effort by Mr. Ocalan to calm nationalists who consider the peace process a major risk for territorial unity, and to also contain regional aspirations among Turkey’s Kurds.

Regional tensions are also a factor for Turkey. In the tumult of Syria’s civil war, an offshoot of the Kurdish rebel group called the Democratic Union Party has taken up arms in pursuit of Kurdish autonomy there. In making peace with the P.K.K., analysts have said, Turkey is seeking to head off the creation of a new base within Syria from which militants linked to the group could launch attacks on Turkey.

The quick pace of the talks has riveted the public here.

“When I first started writing about this subject, I couldn’t even imagine it would come to this point,” wrote Eyup Can, the editor in chief of the newspaper Radikal, in a recent column. “In three months, Turkey is putting a stop to 30 years of bloodshed.”

For all the joy and celebration, there was still a sense of caution, and acknowledgment of a long road ahead.

“I see the statement as a positive development,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a news conference in the Netherlands, where he was on a state visit. “Implementation, however, is much more important, as we hope to see at the earliest to what extent Ocalan’s statement will be accepted.”

While the effort to find peace carries political risks for Mr. Erdogan, it also carries huge possibilities. He faces some opposition from nationalist groups opposed to pursuing talks with the P.K.K., which is regarded as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union. But the political gamble Mr. Erdogan has made is that successful talks could earn him the support of Kurdish lawmakers in Parliament for his effort to alter the constitution to create an empowered presidency that he would then seek in an election next year, analysts have said.

Mr. Ocalan’s direct involvement in the peace process, albeit while he is serving a life term in prison on a treason conviction, was itself a statement of how far the two sides have come. He had been barred from involvement in previous diplomatic efforts.

Murat Karayilan, the P.K.K. military commander, issued a statement from his mountain redoubt in northern Iraq in support of Mr. Ocalan’s call, NTV, a Turkish television channel, reported.

Hardened by the resentments from decades of persecution by the Turkish state, and mindful of past failed attempts at peace, some Kurds sounded a note of skepticism.

“If the state fools these people once more, hell would break lose, and we’d be forced to leave this land that will turn into a big ball of fire,” Zulkuf Gunes, 52, said, as he embraced his 2-year-old grandson dressed in a traditional Kurdish outfit in military green.

In Istanbul, Habibe Sezgin, a Kurd who moved to the city in the 1990s to escape the bloodshed in the southeast, expressed tempered hope. “I will hope and pray for peace,” she said, “but it is hard to believe in it after seeing so much violence over the years.”

Ceylan Yeginsu contributed reporting from Istanbul, and Tim Arango from Baghdad.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 22, 2013, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Jailed Leader Of the Kurds Offers a Truce With Turkey.

March 22, 2013
Turkey Kurds: PKK chief Ocalan to make ‘historic’ call

These people were celebrating the Kurdish New Year early in Istanbul in front of an image of Abdullah Ocalan

The jailed leader of Kurdish rebels fighting Turkey, Abdullah Ocalan, has promised a “historic” announcement on Thursday as peace talks continue.

There is speculation he will call for a ceasefire between his PKK fighters and the Turkish state.

In a message communicated by Kurdish politicians who visited him, he said he would make the announcement to coincide with Kurdish New Year celebrations.

More than 40,000 people have died in nearly 30 years of fighting.

Peace and Democracy Party leader Selahattin Demirtas reported Ocalan’s remarks in Istanbul, after returning from a visit to his prison on the island of Imrali.

“I continue with my preparations to make a call on March 21, during the Newroz [New Year] celebrations,” Ocalan was quoted as saying.

“The declaration I am going to make will be historic.”

The PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) leader, who has been in Turkish custody since his capture in Kenya in 1999, called in February for prisoners to be released by both sides.

The PKK freed eight Turkish soldiers and officials it had held captive in northern Iraq for up to two years.

Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister, Besir Atalay, welcomed their release as “a gesture of goodwill”, adding that the peace process was “going just fine”.

The PKK launched its armed campaign for an ethnic Kurdish homeland in south-east Turkey in 1984.

It is regarded by Turkey, the US and EU as a terrorist organisation. Last year saw some of the heaviest fighting in decades.

via BBC News – Turkey Kurds: PKK chief Ocalan to make ‘historic’ call.

March 19, 2013
Jailed Kurdish rebel to make historic call in Turkey peace process

By Daren Butler

ISTANBUL | Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:51pm EDT

(Reuters) – Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan said he would make a “historic” appeal on Thursday, raising expectations of ceasefire in a 28-year-old conflict which has riven Turkey, killing some 40,000 people, and battered its economy.

Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) leader Selahattin Demirtas, a member of parliament, conveyed Ocalan’s statement on his return to Istanbul on Monday from a visit to his prison on the island of Imrali. A ceasefire could cement talks with the government that have been progressing tentatively since October.

“We want to solve the arms problem rapidly and without losing time or another life,” Ocalan said in asking for the support of parliament and political parties to achieve a peace.

There was no immediate comment from the Turkish government, which says it seeks but will continue to counter PKK operations until they lay down their arms.

The PKK is considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union as well as Turkey. But Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has promoted contacts since a summer that brought a sharp worsening of the conflict with rising guerrilla violence and large-scale arrests of Kurdish activists in the south-east.

A ceasefire call, coinciding with the Kurdish new year, could be accompanied by a command to his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants to withdraw to bases in northern Iraq where the PKK says it keeps about half of its 7,000 fighters. Turkey, which has launched air raids and even ground operations against the bases, gives small numbers for the rebels’ strength.

“The statement I am preparing will be a historic call. It will contain satisfying information on the military and political dimensions of a solution,” said Ocalan, who was captured by Turkish special forces in Kenya 14 years ago and long vilified as a murderer and ‘baby killer’ in Turkish media.

Ocalan was initially sentenced to be hanged for treason on Imrali, but this was commuted to life imprisonment. “Apo”, as he is known to his allies, had been kept largely in isolation since then with no contact with his field commanders.

He was not allowed a television until a few months ago.

FIGHTERS IN THE MOUNTAINS

Truces have been agreed and failed before in the war, but this is the first time Ocalan and a Turkish prime minister have openly spoken of talks on a comprehensive settlement.

Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin said he expected a withdrawal of PKK guerrillas to bases in northern Iraq to be completed by the end of 2013, according to Milliyet newspaper.

Images of soldiers’ coffins returning home have stirred deep emotions in Turkey. But allegations of human rights abuses by security forces in the southeast have damaged Turkey’s image in the EU Ankara seeks to join.

The PKK had originally demanded full independence for a Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey, but has moderated its goals to broader political and cultural autonomy. Kurds account for some 20 percent of Turkey’s 76 million population but are scattered through Western Turkey as well as the southeast.

In the course of the conflict investment in the southeast has slumped and poverty increased, putting a strain, beyond the human losses, on the Turkish economy as a whole.

In an initial confidence-boosting step, the PKK last week released eight Turkish captives which it had been holding at its bases in northern Iraq for up to two years.

Imrali island has long associations with the more turbulent chapters in Turkey’s history. After a military coup in 1960, prime minister Adnan Menderes and two other senior ministers were hanged there.

(Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker in Ankara; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

via Jailed Kurdish rebel to make historic call in Turkey peace process | Reuters.

March 19, 2013
Turkey’s Kurds say freeing jailed activists would help peace

By Ayla Jean Yackley

ISTANBUL | Thu Mar 14, 2013 12:07pm EDT

(Reuters) – Turkey should release thousands of detained Kurdish activists to bolster a fledgling peace process aimed at ending a decades-long insurgency, the head of parliament’s pro-Kurdish party said on Thursday.

The militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Wednesday freed eight Turkish hostages in what was seen as a goodwill gesture during talks between the state and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan on how to resolve a 28-year-old conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

In a next step, Ocalan is expected to call a rebel ceasefire by the Kurdish new year on March 21.

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) has called for the release of thousands of people, including mayors, journalists, lawyers, detained for alleged ties with the PKK.

Long-running trials have failed to produce any convictions so far, and Human Rights Watch has said there is little evidence that the defendants engaged in violence.

“Steps need to be taken to lift barriers on Kurdish rights, including the thousands of prisoners,” Kisanak told Reuters after a media briefing. “At this point their release has become an expectation … and would contribute to the peace process.”

The government’s planned legal reforms, which a parliamentary commission began debating on Thursday, fail to go far enough, Kisanak also said.

Those changes could make it harder to prosecute people for statements or speeches made on behalf of “terrorist organizations” and are widely seen as an overture towards improving Kurdish political freedoms.

“There are anti-democratic laws, and unfortunately this package of legal reforms is insufficient. I see it as a waste of parliament’s time,” Kisanak told reporters.

Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist group.

Kisanak said she expected Ocalan to call a ceasefire by next week’s Newroz, the Kurdish new year and a traditional time of protest in the largely Kurdish southeast.

“I believe the call will be about much more than just a ceasefire,” Kisanak said, but did not elaborate.

The PKK has called several ceasefires since Ocalan was captured and jailed in 1999, but violence rose sharply between June 2011 and late last year. Ocalan still yields considerable clout from his prison cell on an island near Istanbul.

The state kept previous efforts to negotiate with Ocalan secret but this time has openly acknowledged the talks, considered the best chance in years at ending a war that has held back Turkey’s political and economic development.

The current undertaking includes a kind of shuttle mediation by the BDP, members of which have met with Ocalan and delivered his letters to the PKK leadership based in northern Iraq.

Kisanak said Ocalan should be allowed to communicate directly with the PKK to accelerate the process.

(Editing by Alistair Lyon)

via Turkey’s Kurds say freeing jailed activists would help peace | Reuters.

March 15, 2013