CHP’s Oslo protocol revelation bogus, Bozdağ says

20 September 2012 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL – The alleged text of a protocol signed between officials representing the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 2011 in Oslo, which was publicly disclosed by a senior Republican People’s Party (CHP) official on Tuesday, is not an authentic document, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ has said.

Bozdağ, who attended a meeting in Beyoğlu on the problems faced by the Roma, responded to questions from the press after the event. In response to a question regarding the text of the protocol allegedly signed by the PKK and government representatives and made public by CHP Deputy Chairman Haluk Koç on Tuesday, he said: “This shows the style of the CHP. For one, it is a fact that the text Koç presented to the public is not a real document. Earlier this year similar stories came up in the press in February and they were all refuted by the prime minister.” He said Koç’s announcement was a “fiasco.”

He also said it was unethical to bring up an issue that has already been dealt with as if it were a new event. “The CHP can’t create new policies or projects,” he said, arguing that this was the reason behind the CHP’s false announcement. “The CHP will never find its path if it believes everything that’s put before it.”

Akif Hamzaçebi, a deputy chairman of the CHP’s parliamentary group, said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had said the protocol hadn’t been signed by him. This means only one thing: We talked and agreed on all of these [points in the protocol], but it hasn’t been signed. So they are waiting for a better time for the signature.”

Another deputy prime minister, Bülent Arınç, commented on the Oslo text on Wednesday. Arınç did not comment on the authenticity of the text disclosed by the CHP but said, of the Oslo negotiations process, “There will be talks again if need be in order to end terrorism,” adding, “Perhaps there are talks already under way.”

In a related development, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Ankara deputy Özcan Yeniçeri said during a press conference he organized on Tuesday at Parliament, “The reason behind the escalation in terrorist attacks is that the PKK is trying to force the state to sit down for new Oslo-like talks.”

In the press statements on Monday, Koç said England, in the capacity of an arbiter country, signed the text in the name of the two parties. According to the text the two sides agreed upon, military operations and terrorist activities would be stopped by both sides; committees would be set up to find a solution to the Kurdish problem; two persons would visit Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the terrorist organization, on behalf of the PKK; politicians arrested in the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) investigation — the KCK being an umbrella organization that includes the PKK — following the Nevruz of 2011 would be released; and negotiations would be restarted after the general elections of June 12.

Koç also demanded to know whether Hakan Fidan, the undersecretary of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) who was present at the negotiations, made a commitment in the negotiations to grant autonomy to Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish Southeast.

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-292825-chps-oslo-protocol-revelation-bogus-bozdag-says.html