ISTANBUL
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party has revealed that it will organize large “peace meetings” across the country in an attempt to keep alive the “solution process” between the state and Kurdish militants.
A statement on Friday from the Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, said turning the process into state policy would be the only way to maintain its momentum “regardless of the formula of the new government”.
Turkish political parties are still in negotiations about forming a possible coalition government in the aftermath of the country’s inconclusive June 7 general election.
The solution process to end the 30-year conflict between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) insurgents was initiated in 2013; in February this year senior government ministers met with HDP leaders officially for the first time.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey as well as by the U.S. and the European Union.
Today’s HDP statement also claimed that a “lockdown” was in place against Abdullah Ocalan, the group’s imprisoned leader being held on Imrali Island in the southern Marmara Sea.
It added that a HDP committee’s visit to the island has been blocked.
