ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s pro-Kurdish political party will soon submit a proposal to the parliament speaker for the formation of a commission to oversee the peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) with the hopes that it can speed up progress towards ending four decades of bloody conflict.
"As [PKK founder] Mr. Ocalan said in his most recent statement on the 27th of April, the conditions for advancing the current solution process are to create a political and legal framework. A commission must be formed in parliament for this,” Mihemed Kamac, a member of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party, told Rudaw’s Nalin Hassan on Saturday.
Kamac said that there are no obstacles to forming the commission and all parties see it as something positive.
“As a recommendation, I can say that a commission consisting of 40 to 50 people should be built to conduct its work hastily,” he said.
Establishing a parliamentary commission would be a significant step in steering the peace process after the PKK announced on May 12 its intention to dissolve itself and end its armed campaign, responding to a call from their jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.
The PKK insists that the ball is now in Turkey’s court and expects concrete steps from Ankara. However, Turkish officials have stated that they want to see tangible changes on the ground, including the PKK’s disarmament and the dissolution of all its regional offshoots.
DEM Party will submit their commission proposal to the parliament speaker this week.
“We will present this draft to the Speaker of the Assembly Numan Kurtulmus on Monday, as will other political parties,” Aysegul Dogan, DEM Party spokesperson, said in a press conference on Friday.
Ozgur Ozel, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), told Rudaw in a recent interview that the commission was initially their idea. He recommended that it include representatives from all 16 political parties in the legislature and be chaired by the parliament speaker.
DEM Party representatives met with Parliament Speaker Kurtulmus on Thursday and plan to meet with Ozel, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli in the coming weeks, after which they will visit Ocalan in prison.
While work continues on the political front, the PKK’s military wing - the People’s Defense Forces (HPG) - said on Saturday that in the past two weeks Turkish forces have intensified attacks against them in northern Duhok province and warned that the continued military action could create obstacles for the peace process.
Last weekend, Turkey’s Defense Ministry shared a video it said showed PKK weapons and supplies soldiers had discovered in a cave in northern Duhok.
