Pro-Kurdish party says Turkey vague on peace steps after PKK pledge

Turkey's pro-Kurdish party said President Tayyip Erdogan's governing alliance offered no clear steps during closed-door talks on Monday meant to advance a peace process after Kurdish militants pledged to disarm.

In an interview late on Monday, Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit, the DEM Party's deputy parliamentary group chair, said government officials outlined their stance in broad terms but remained vague on addressing the party's democratic demands.

Her comments followed meetings between DEM, Turkey's third-largest party, and Erdogan's governing AK Party (AKP) and separately its nationalist ally MHP on Monday.

The talks sought to advance steps towards ending a more than 40-year conflict between the state and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which last month declared a ceasefire in response to jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan's call for disarmament.

Though the PKK pledge marks a big step towards ending an insurgency that has left more than 40,000 dead, mostly militants, the government has said the group must act first before any discussions of bolstering Kurdish rights.

“They used phrases such as 'a terror-free Turkey' and 'the country must swiftly rid itself of this issue'. They suggested if weapons are silenced and the PKK dissolves, the democratic space in Turkey will expand,” Kocyigit said.

“But there was no specific roadmap or clear commitment on what steps they are willing to take,” she told Reuters.

The government, DEM and MHP support the peace call, which gives Erdogan a historic opportunity to bring security and development to southeast Turkey and has broad implications for neighbouring Syria and Iraq, where the PKK is now based.

But Erdogan has also warned that cross-border military operations against the PKK — which Turkey and its Western allies deem a terrorist group — would resume if promises were not kept.

Past peace efforts have faltered, most notably a 2013-2015 ceasefire that collapsed into renewed violence. The latest discussions come as, in Syria, Kurdish forces and the administration in Damascus are seeking to consolidate.

The DEM Party played a key role facilitating the call from Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence on an island prison and has been barred from legal visits for years.

Kocyigit said DEM conveyed its priorities to authorities, including calls for reforms to anti-terror law, penal code and judicial practices as well as an end to the practice of appointing trustees to replace elected opposition mayors.

She added that confidence-building steps, such as halting military operations and improving Ocalan's prison conditions, were essential.

“The government does not see this as a matter of political momentum,” she said, and suggested it will consider steps only after the PKK acts.

She said talks in Ankara will continue despite the lack of a timeline so far. Separately, in northern Iraq, the PKK is expected to hold a congress meeting in coming weeks or months to vote on disarmament.

After attending the meetings with DEM in parliament, AKP spokesperson Omer Celik said the party is “not engaging in a negotiation or a give-and-take”, adding it has previously discussed raising Turkey's democratisation standards.

“Our priority in this matter is for the PKK to completely lay down its arms,” he told reporters on Monday.

Reuters