MHP LEADER SAYS KURDISH PEACE PROCESS WILL ‘RUIN’ TURKEY

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 5 2015

The leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has claimed that
the roadmap recently announced by the ruling Justice and Development
Party (AK Party) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP)
to resolve the country’s decades-old Kurdish problem will lead to
the collapse of the Turkish Republic and has vowed to resist it.

Drawing a parallel between the Treaty of Sevres — which was intended
to break up the Ottoman Empire following World War I — and the
10-article roadmap, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli said on Tuesday that
“the Nationalist Movement Party is determined to give no chance
of success to the agreement between the AK Party and the [outlawed
Kurdistan Workers’ Party] PKK.”

Speaking at his party’s parliamentary group meeting, the MHP leader
maintained that there is essentially no difference between the road
map and the Treaty of Sevres, which attempted to impose on the Ottoman
government the establishment of independent Kurdish and Armenian
states on Ottoman territory.

A delegation representing the government and the HDP — which is
linked with the PKK — made a joint statement on Saturday concerning
details of the roadmap, originally set down by Abdullah Ocalan, the
jailed leader of the PKK. In the statement, the parties unveiled the
10-article roadmap designed to further the settlement process with
the PKK, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey,
the US and the EU.

The roadmap, which the MHP has said is treasonous, also includes a
commitment to amending the Constitution to meet the PKK’s demands.

Demands by the PKK include autonomy for the predominantly Kurdish
southeast of the country and a Kurdish security force, schooling in
the Kurdish language, recognition of the Kurdish ethnic identity and
Kurdish as an official language in the Constitution and a commitment
to allowing PKK members and Ocalan to take part in politics.

Bahceli slammed the agreement, claiming that each article would mean
“ruin” for the state. According to Bahceli, allowing PKK members
to take part in politics would amount to a defeat for Turkey and a
victory for the PKK. “Preparations to allow a terrorist organization
which destroyed democracy and killed babies [to take part in Turkish
politics] is at least as tragic as the suffering of those killed
[in the fight against the PKK],” the MHP leader said.

Claiming that the PKK does not intend to lay down its arms, Bahceli
added, “The PKK’s call to lay down arms is nothing more than a maneuver
and trickery aimed at buying time.”

Based on the roadmap, Ocalan has called on the PKK to organize a
congress in the spring to discuss a peaceful settlement, a requirement
of the peace process launched at the end of 2012.

“[They say] the PKK will convene an extraordinary congress, that it
will lay down arms, peace will come and a path to democracy will be
paved. They were also talking about peace while discussing the Treaty
of Sevres but it was obvious at that time that what kind of hell it
would bring to the Turkish people,” Bahceli said.

The call from Ocalan came three months before the general election
to be held on June 7, raising suspicions that the ruling party may
be seeking to exploit the process for political purposes.

The Treaty of Sèvres was imposed on the Ottoman government by the
victorious Western powers at the end of World War I. The treaty —
signed on Aug. 10, 1920 and allowing for the establishment of Armenian
and Kurdish states in Anatolia — was in fact never put into effect,
being rejected by the Turkish national liberation movement, whose
success led to its replacement by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.