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KT Comment:
Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced this week that he is prepared to drink poison for peace. By his deeds, however, he must be judged.
Throughout February the Turkish military has continued to bomb the Qandil valley. This has involved Turkish fighter jets invading Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) air space and terrorising civilians, as well as targeting PKK bases.
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Central Committee member Mele Bextiyar has correctly argued that there cannot be a one-sided peace process.
“We believe a mutual ceasefire should be declared in the current process”, he told reporters yesterday. “Concerning the peace process initiated in Imralı prison, we call on politicians from South Kurdistan to support this call of ours and to give the Turkish state a message of strong unity among Kurds”.
This view was echoed by Ahmet Türk, the veteran politician who has travelled from Turkey to south Kurdistan as part of the delegation of Kurdish leaders planning to meet the PKK leadership based in the Qandil. “The intense bombardment in Qandil in the ongoing process of talks weakens Kurdish people’s trust in the peace process”, he said.
Asked about calls for the PKK to lay down its arms, Türk said that disarmament should be the final stage of the peace process. “There is a primary need to develop a peaceful atmosphere for the solution of the Kurdish question. There is also a need for a mutual ceasefire. We think politicians in South Kurdistan are also of the same opinion”.
The KRG must demand that Erdogan halts Turkey’s military operations against Kurds and pursues a genuine peace process.
Copyright © 2013 Kurdistantribune.com
A continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Recep Tayyip Erdogan sounds just like an Israeli lawmaker. So he can retract his comment about Zionism, if he want to renounce his Pan-Turkism.
Agree. if peace have a chance, the cease-fire has to be at both sides.