A 16 POINTS DECLARATION : Conference in Brussels undertakes task of peace

ANF – BRUSSELS  2.7.2013 – The final declaration of the Peace and Democracy Conference in Europe pointed out that the participants of the conference have undertaken task of peace as the constituents of the peace and democracy process.The final declaration, which was prepared following a series of debates and proposals during two days of the conference in Brussels, was approved by the delegates.

The sixteen-point declaration called on the AKP government and the Turkish parliament to fulfill their responsibilities for the immediate initiation of the second stage of the democratic solution process.

The declaration urged the AKP government to end its interventionist and threatening policies against neighboring countries and called on European countries to urgently end the arms sale and the military and intelligence support they provide for the Turkish state.The declaration also pointed out that the Turkish state needed to face all massacres Armenians, Assyrians, Ezidis and Alewis have suffered on these lands, the unsolved murders and the truth on disappeared people.

The declaration called on all individuals and institutions siding with peace, democracy and labor to act together for the achievement of a honorable and fair peace.

The final declaration said that;

1- Our conference believes it is essential to form a pluralist, equitable and liberal constitution for the achievement of a lasting peace and continuation of the negotiation processes, to grant equal constitutional rights for all nations and belief groups and to establish countrywide democratic self-governance systems basing on the European Charter of Local Self Government. We believe the practice of democracy and the building of peace constitute an entire totality.

2- We however put emphasis on our concerns over the problems that constitute an obstacle to the advancement of the peace and democracy process in mutual trust. We are of the opinion that the failure of the beginning of the second stage of the three-stage action plan and the recently revealed authoritarian sense of politics in the face of Gezi protests lead up to significant problems considering the fact that the first stage of the resolution process began with a ceasefire and continued with the withdrawal of guerrilla units (from Turkish borders). The AKP government and the Turkish parliament should fulfill their responsibilities to strengthen the democratic solution and peace process and to enable the beginning of the second stage, which includes the initiation of a legal-constitutional process, immediately so that the steps aiming to ensure mutual confidence do not remain as one sided.

3- In order to ensure the advancement of negotiations with success, it is a must to provide Mr. Abdullah Öcalan with necessary conditions of health, security and freedom and to ensure that he gets in contact with the Turkish parliament, public opinion and representatives of various social circles. Our conference calls on the AKP government to take all these steps in the soonest time.

4- The AKP government must pave the way for democratic politics to ensure that the recently revealed historic opportunities of peace could be used for the benefit of peoples and the negotiation process could become socialized. To achieve this purpose, we call on the government to remove all the obstacles to democratic politics (democratization of the law on political parties and election law and the removal of the election threshold etc.) to end all precautions that restrict the freedoms of expression, organization, meetings and demonstrations, press and broadcast, and to create a democratic environment where everyone can receive education in their mother tongue and use it in all areas of life.

5- In this respect, we urge the Turkish republic to meet the requirements of the international conventions it is a party to, such as the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, to end the violation of human rights, to abide by the rule of law and the principle of separation of powers strengthened by equilibrium and inspection mechanisms, to immediately remove all drawbacks concerning all international conventions for basic rights and freedoms, European Charter of Local Self Government, Convention on the Rights of the Children and Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) being in the first place, and to sign other conventions on human rights and nature conservation.

6- We demand the urgent implementation of legal arrangements necessary to enable the release of all ill, child and political prisoners. In connection with this, we call on the government and the parliament to make necessary legal arrangements to ensure that all those exiled to Europe in tens of thousands, as victims of military coups and the dirty war in the country, can return their homeland and be granted all their citizen rights.

7- Our conference calls upon the Turkish parliament to contribute to the domination of a manner and language of politics conformed with the spirit of peace in order to enable the advancement of the democratization process, to abolish the coup constitution and to prepare a new democratic constitution with the participation of all social circles.

8- Our conference demands constitutional assurance for all houses of worship as well as the ending of the constrained building of mosques in the villages inhabited by Alewis, Assyrian-Syriacs, Armenians and Ezidis as part of assimilation policies. The new constitution should present a secular description of the state, abolish the Directorate of Religious Affairs and end compulsory religion lessons. The houses of worship seized by the state should be returned to relevant belief groups and the name Yavuz Sultan Selim proposed for the third bridge in Istanbul should be recalled for insulting the Alewi community.

9-Our conference believes the construction of a free and common future depends on confronting our past. It is a precondition for peace to face all massacres of Armenians, Assyrian-Syriacs, Ezidis, as well as the Dersim, Maraş, Çorum, Sivas, Gazi and Roboski massacres being in the first place, and unsolved murders and disappeared people. It is also essential for the achievement of democratization and a lasting peace to ensure the trial and punishment of the perpetrators of all prescribed crimes against humanity.

10- Believing that peace and democracy is an indispensable necessity for Turkey, four parts of Kurdistan and the Middle East, our conference calls on the AKP government to end its interventionist and threatening policies against neighboring countries.

11- The attendees of the conference, as people in solidarity with Kurds in Rojava and peoples in Syria and feeling the pains they are suffering, declare objection to all kinds of interventions in this region. We declare that we are always standing by the Syrian peoples in their struggle for building an equal, free, democratic and peaceful future.

We also demand that light is shed on perpetrators of the Paris massacre, bans on political institutions in Turkey and Kurdistan be removed and those arrested for their connection with these institutions be released.

12- As attendees of the European Conference for Peace and Democracy, we see ourselves as the constituents of the peace and democracy process. Our task includes not only monitoring the negotiation process but also taking part in the process as intervening subjects, ensuring a broader participation outside the constituents of the conference for the socialization of the peace and negotiation process, and briefing the democratic community in Europe about the process and enabling their provision of contribution to peace.

13- As constituents of the conference, we call on all people who come from Turkey and Kurdistan and live in Europe, and all the institutions and establishments formed by these people to join the struggle in Turkey for equality, justice and democratization. We point out that we are open to different opinions in this regard, thinking that the assurance of diversities will be achieved by means of the co-movement of all victims.

14- We announce that we will be giving a common struggle as people who have common demands and approaches about the achievement of peace, solution and democratization. We declare that it is our common and strong will to display determination about enhancing the struggle for the socialization of the peace and democratization process and negotiations, and for crowning the struggle for equality, freedom, labor, rights and ecological justice with democracy.

15- Considering its determination that gender dilemma is one of the basic problems of the 21st century, our conference points out that women, the most dynamic and founding actor of community, cannot be handled separately from the society.

Any intervention on women constitutes an intervention on the society. Our conference declares objection to all kinds of attacks that target women. It adopts the determination for equal participation in all areas of the society basing on the principle of equality with diversities.

16- Our conference has been a strong will serving for solution, peace and democratization by gathering together many various circles that come from Turkey and Kurdistan and live in Europe. Our conference sees it as one of its basic duties to organize a peace struggle from bottom to top in order to contribute to the construction of a lasting peace and a common democratic future.

Our conference has decided on the formation of a Peace and Democracy Assembly to conduct the works it aims. It also decided on the establishment of commissions affiliated to the Assembly, including a truth and justice commission, a commission for briefing the European community, public relations commission, law, arrangement and new constitution commission, women’s freedom commission and youth’s commission.We call on all individuals and institutions that side with peace, democracy and labor to take part in the joint struggle for the achievement of a lasting peace, an equitable and liberal constitution and the construction of a common democratic future. Well aware of our responsibilities, we announce to our peoples and the public opinion that we have undertaken the task of an honorable and fair peace.