Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan made a historic "Call for Peace and Democratic Society" on 27 February. While the call resonated around the world, the PKK announced a ceasefire. Commenting on the call, Hüseyin Küküçbalaban, Co-Chair of the Human Rights Association (IHD), said that the call caused joy among human rights defenders. Küçükbalaban stated that the issue is not only conflict and war and added, "We have once again seen that both the war and conflict and the PKK are the result of the denial of Kurdishness in the history of the republic for a hundread years. If basic rights and freedoms, the rights of peoples, the rights and freedom of beliefs, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and expression, individual rights and many other basic rights had been recognised since the foundation of the republic, perhaps the Kurds would have been first-class equal citizens of this country and would have already exercised their rights. Naturally, the PKK would not have emerged."

 

Stating that the call is meaningful in many aspects, Küçükbalaban said that it was important that the PKK made a statement on 1 March stating that they were behind this call. Küçükbalaban said, "Because in order for the peace process or this unnamed process to somehow lead to the construction of peace, conflicts, operations and armed methods must be deactivated. We also state that the state should immediately put an end to the operations. The attacks on both Southern Kurdistan and Rojava with UAVs and UCAVs must somehow stop."

 

Pointing out that the question that needs to be asked is how peace will be built after this call, Küçükbalaban said, "Nearly two weeks have passed since the announcements. During this time, we have not heard anything about what kind of road map and agenda the state has. This situation leads to confusion both among civil society organisations and the people of Turkey and the Kurdish people."

 

'ISOLATION MUST BE LIFTED IMMEDIATELY'

 

Küçükbalaban stated that one of the steps to be taken quickly is the conditions of Abdullah Öcalan and said, "Even though there have been some meetings with Abdullah Öcalan after more than 4 years, the isolation still continues. The isolation on Abdullah Öcalan must be lifted. Because Öcalan must manage the disarmament process of the organisation at some stage. Obviously, he must be physically involved in this process."

 

Küçükbalaban added, "Turkey must immediately remove the reservations on the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which Turkey has already made reservations to. This is because the European Charter of Local Self-Government has already been accepted by Turkey in the form it was put into force in 1993, with restrictions on the articles I have listed, especially on the administrative and financial autonomy of local governments. Now these restrictions must be lifted immediately.” 

 

'A PACKAGE MUST BE RESPONDED WITH A PACKAGE'

 

Stating that this is a radical call and Turkey must respond to it with a radical democracy package, Küçükbalaban said: "With the radical democracy package, the reservations in the local governments autonomy charter must be removed and at the same time, with a legal amendment, governors, district governors and police chiefs must be elected. In other words, all public services other than the judiciary and national defense unit at the general and national level, which we call national, including health, education, local security and administration, should be elected. In other words, this call for peace and a democratic society must be answered in this way. Again, the Anti-Terror Law must be abolished immediately. There is also the situation of ill prisoners. There are more than 600 people who have served their 30-year sentences and are prevented from being released. As a goodwill step, according to 2021 data, there are 1,517 sick prisoners in prisons and 651 of them are seriously ill prisoners. Their release must be ensured."

 

Küçükbalaban informed that as IHD, they have drawn up a road map for the process and said, “We are trying to draw up a road map on how to eliminate the consequences of 40 years of war and conflict. Therefore, we want to discuss this road map with the state. If they brought a radical democracy package to Parliament, no opposition party would oppose it. A package should be prepared and its name should be 'Radical Democracy Package'.”   

 

'THE RIGHT TO HOPE IS A UNIVERSAL RIGHT'

 

Drawing attention to the situation of political prisoners sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment, "4 thousand prisoners have been sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment. If there is to be peace, we need to ensure the release of these prisoners whom you tried and sentenced. This is how you can get people with weapons off the mountain. This is necessary to cinvince them to disarm."

 

Küçükbalaban also touched upon the importance of the language used by both the national press and state officials in this process and said, "After Abdullah Öcalan's call, the national press and mainstream media are still speaking the language of war. In other words, we cannot even see the language of peace in the press yet. All this must be banned immediately. Such concepts cannot be used. If there is a state mind, this mind can convey and spread the language of peace to these media organizations in a day. We cannot see the language of peace even in the mouths of state officials."

 

Küçükbalaban stressed: "There are discourses such as ‘the Kurds and the government have reached an agreement, the presidential election was discussed or similar things were discussed’. It is an injustice against the peoples of Turkey to turn this issue into an election material, to evaluate it with an election-indexed perspective. The success of this process is only possible if these groups embrace it. I say that this opportunity should not be missed."

 

MA / Ömer Güngör