Interview
Aysegul Dogan, spokesperson for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), in an interview with Rudaw on March 26, 2024. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party is not in secret negotiations with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) or the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) ahead of the March 31 local elections, its spokesperson told Rudaw on Tuesday.
“There are no secret negotiations behind closed doors. We have not held any meetings behind closed doors, not only with the AKP, but also with other parties,” Aysegul Dogan, spokesperson of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), told Rudaw’s Nwenar Fatih in an interview.
“We are a party that fights for the rights of the Kurdish people and the rights of other peoples living in Turkey whose rights are being violated. We also fight for the rights of oppressed peoples, equality, freedom, peace and democracy,” she stressed.
Turkey will hold provincial elections on Sunday. There will be a tight race between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP and DEM Party in the Kurdish areas in the southeast of the country.
“We are in favor of negotiations and the AKP and CHP are united against the Kurds,” she affirmed.
Dogan expressed optimism about the Kurdish party’s chances in the elections, stressing they will achieve a “big victory” and win back municipalities forcibly taken away by the government following the 2019 local elections.
“We will take back our municipalities, the municipalities that were forcibly taken away from us. We will hand over the will of the people to the people,” she emphasized.
“What we want is not just to win the March 31 elections, we want a big victory.”
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the predecessor of DEM Party, had its winning candidates in the 2019 local polls replaced with pro-government administrators, in most cases governors. A large number of the elected pro-Kurdish officials were arrested and many of them remain in jail for alleged links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The spokesperson said that the party has paid a “great price” for injustices and is open for dialogue and negotiations with the Turkish government to find a lasting solution for the Kurdish issue in the country.
“Many of our parties were closed down, a large number of our officials were killed, not only arrested and expelled, but killed,” she lamented.
A Kurdish peace process to end decades of bloody conflict started in 2013 between the Turkish government under then-prime minister Erdogan and the PKK. The talks were mediated by the HDP. The talks collapsed in 2015, followed by intense urban fighting in the country’s Kurdish areas.
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.
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.
“Every way of negotiating and resolving the Kurdish issue through dialogue is because of us. This is the foundation of our party. All roads have been closed to the Kurdish people who have been trying for decades to preserve their identity, culture, art, and language,” she said.
Dogan further criticized the AKP and CHP, saying their media unite and take a stance against Kurdish rights when the topic becomes a Kurdish one.
Tulay Hatimogullari, DEM Party co-chair, said during Kurdish New Year celebration (Newroz) in Diyarbakir on Saturday that the AKP remembers the Kurdish issue only during the election cycle.
“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,” she told hundreds of thousands of supporters.
However, she did not call the HDP’s support for CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu for the Istanbul mayorality in the 2019 elections wrong.
“There was criticism about these points, but especially for 2019 we cannot say that a mistake was made [in supporting the CHP candidate in Istanbul]. On the contrary, a great victory was recorded. For 25 years, one party ruled Istanbul, but with the strength of our party, that changed in favor of another party. What does that indicate? That shows the strength of our party.”
In response to accusations of nominating an Istanbul candidate to serve AKP’s interests, Dogan denied the accusations, saying all DEM Party candidates are nominated “for our own interests, the interests of our people, and the interests of our party.”
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. The party has also appointed Kurdish ministers to its cabinets. The incumbent finance and foreign ministers are among them.
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