MESOP : CLEVERNESS BY DEMIRTAS / STUPIDITY BY ERDOGAN Renewed talks would secure PKK ceasefire: Demirtas

30 Aug 2015 – The joint leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition People’s Democracy Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas said on Saturday he expected the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to lay down its arms if Turkey resumed negotiations with the armed group.Speaking to reporters ahead of an election rally in The Hague, Demirtas said renewed negotiations would end the flare-up in clashes between Turkish armed forces and the PKK near Turkey’s southeastern border, Zaman daily reported.

The HDP has been at loggerheads with the PKK since the bombing.

The PKK has scorned HDP calls for a ceasefire. But Demirtas said this did not spell an end to prospects for peace.”What (PKK) meant was: ‘if a solution is brought back onto the political agenda, they won’t even have to call for us to lay arms, we will do it anyway,'” Demirtas said, adding that a strong showing for the HDP in parliamentary elections in November would increase the chances of resuming talks.More than 240,000 people from the Netherlands were eligible to vote in the June election, and voters abroad played a key role in the party’s poll success. The HDP’s success deprived the Justice and Development Party (AKP) founded by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of a parliamentary majority. Demirtas called repeat elections scheduled for Nov. 1 a “coup” designed to prevent a government not controlled by the AKP from being formed.