Öcalan: We are ready for negotiations

ANF – News Desk 19.11.2013 – Mehmet Öcalan spoke to DIHA (Dicle News Agency) about the details of the meeting he had with his brother, Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan in İmralı prison on Monday.

Mehmet Öcalan said the Kurdish leader spoke during the meeting about the developments in the last one year of the resolution process, approaching local elections in Turkey and the recent developments in Rojava, western Kurdistan.

The PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) leader reacted to the reports of some Turkish media organs and government officials about the suspension of the dislocation of Kurdish guerrillas along the borders. Responding to the criticism over the suspension of the withdrawal process, the Kurdish leader said that; “This is a quite fragile subject. The withdrawal was suspended because of the fact that the Turkish state and government prepared no legal ground for this process. This is also the reason why the process is continuing this way now”.

The Kurdish leader -his brother said- has conveyed his opinions on negotiations under three separate titles to the delegation of the state during the recent meeting they have had. Öcalan said he currently waits for the answer of the delegation and stressed that the infrastructure of the negotiation process should be grounded on a legal frame. “We are ready for negotiations, there is no problem on our side but the Kurdish question is not an issue that could be resolved with unilateral steps. The process which can only make a progress with the contributions of the Turkish state and government stands at a very fragile point now. I am neither hopeful nor hopeless. The answer of the state’s delegation could make it clear how the process will continue”, his brother the PKK leader as saying.

Also making comments on the approaching local elections, the Kurdish leader remarked that the elections should be grounded on the co-chairing system. Öcalan also put emphasis on the importance of improvement of politics academies across the Kurdish region in order for the resolution of the temporary personnel issue. The Kurdish leader noted that the politicians to be elected shouldn’t become a candidate more than twice.

Mehmet Öcalan avoided conveying the Kurdish leader’s comments on the visit Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani paid to the main Kurdish city Amed/Diyarbakır at the weekend, defending that it would not be true to convey his comments in the current state of affairs. PKK leader also saluted the democratic political struggle, the stance and resistance of the people in Rojava and remarked that the autonomous administration should be enrooted together with all peoples in the region.The Kurdish leader also called on everyone to make further contribution to democratic politics.