ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A member of the Turkish parliament said on Sunday that he believes a new constitution will be on the agenda of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan following municipal elections later this month, but noted that Erdogan will need Kurdish support for any changes and this may open the door to a resumption of peace talks to end decades of conflict in the country.
Cengiz Candar is a veteran Turkish journalist who was elected to the parliament last year as a member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). He spoke with Rudaw’s Abdulselam Akinci on the sidelines of “The Solution to the Kurdish Issue and Peace Conference” in Diyarbakir.
“The number one issue of the authority following the elections will be writing a new constitution,” Candar said.
Following his win in last year’s presidential election, Erdogan has been openly critical of the constitution and said it is time for a new one. The current Turkish constitution was created in 1982 following a military coup. Despite amendments made in 2017 that swapped the country’s parliamentary system for a presidential one, Erdogan remains unhappy with what he has labeled the “1982 coup constitution.”
Candar said that Kurdish rights and mother tongue rights must have a place in any new constitution.
The first four articles of the current document describe the official language and the identity of citizens as Turkish, leaving no place for the Kurdish language or Kurdish rights. Kurds make up an estimated 20 percent of Turkey’s population.
Candar said that the DEM Party must be involved in the conversation around the constitution as the Turkish president will need Kurdish support to pass any changes.
“So we, as the DEM Party and the Kurdish movement, must be brought into the conversation… And all of this brings to mind the possibility of the revival of the peace process,” he added.
In 2013, the Turkish government started a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to end decades of conflict. The process collapsed when the talks fell apart in July 2015.
Jailed Kurdish politicians Selahattin Demirtas and Selcuk Mizrakli sent letters to the attendees of the conference in Diyarbakir and expressed their support to solve the Kurdish issue through dialogue.
Turkey will hold municipal elections on March 31. In Istanbul, Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) fielded former environment minister Murat Kurum to try and retake the city’s mayoralty from the opposition’s incumbent Ekrem Imamoglu.
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