AKP only remembers Kurdish issue during elections: pro-Kurdish party leader

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A leader of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party on Sunday accused the country’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of only remembering the Kurdish issue during the elections cycle, ahead of the March 31 local vote. 

Kurds have been oppressed in Turkey for decades, with their mother tongue banned in official settings. The resolution of the Kurdish issue seems distant despite several attempts by a number of Turkish cabinets and Kurdish officials. 

Several Kurdish political parties have been shut down for alleged affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and thousands of their members remain in jail on similar charges. 

“The Kurdish people have suffered a lot, the people of Turkey have paid a high price. AKP also only remembers the Kurdish problem from election to election,” said Tulay Hatimogullari, co-chair of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) while addressing veteran Kurdish politician Leyla Zana’s Newroz speech in Turkey’s Kurdish city of Diyarbakir (Amed). 

Hatimogullari also blasted the AKP for attempting to take advantage of Zana’s speech calling for a resolution of the Kurdish issue by saying they will revive the process, “but this is only an imagination and nothing will follow after.” 

“This time they will do the same thing and use the Kurdish issue as a powerful election campaign tool for its own benefit,” she stressed. 

The Kurdish peace process to end decades of bloody conflict started in 2013 between the Turkish government under then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the PKK. The talks were supported by Kurdistan Region officials, including then-president Masoud Barzani, and were mediated by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), DEM Party’s sister party. 

The talks collapsed in 2015, followed by intense urban fighting in Kurdish areas in the southeast of the country. More recently, the focus of the conflict has shifted across the border into the Kurdistan Region. 

Some Turkish officials claim that the HDP is the political wing of the PKK. This is the reason for an ongoing legal case against the party. These accusations forced the HDP to rebrand itself as the DEM Party to avoid potential obstacles in 2023 general elections and the March 31 local vote.

The HDP’s former co-president Selahattin Demirtas, who was the main face of the now-collapsed peace process, recently called on the DEM party and the AKP to meet and enter negotiations.

On Thursday, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Diyarbakir to celeberate Newroz - the Kurdish New Year - and call for a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey. 

There is a long history of animosity and conflict over Kurdish issues and rights in Turkey. The state has at times gone as far as denying the very existence of Kurds. Turkey's Kurds were provided limited cultural rights when Erdogan's AKP came to power three decades ago.

In light of Turkey’s intensification of its cross-border operations against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region and Ankara’s recent threat of a fresh offensive against its fighters in the Region in summer, it appears that the Turkish government is not currently seeking a ceasefire with the group. 

The Turkish defense ministry said on Thursday that Iraq is open to establishing a joint operations center with Ankara to fight the PKK, a week after a high-level security meeting with Iraqi officials. Baghdad officially banned the Kurdish group following the meeting.

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