The People's Alliance, led by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), made a historic call to end decades-long PKK terrorism for good. Bahçeli called for the jailed leader of the terrorist group to be eligible for a parole hearing and freely speak at Parliament so that he could call on PKK followers to lay down arms. Erdoğan supported Bahçeli's remarks and described it as a historic window of opportunity for a terror-free Türkiye.
In a landmark speech on Tuesday, Bahçeli, who once called for the execution of PKK's jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan, advised authorities to amend the “right to hope,” a legal concept that grants parole hearings for people sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment like Öcalan.
“If his confinement is lifted, the terrorist leader should come to Parliament and address the parliamentary group meeting of the DEM Party,” he said, referring to the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, associated with the PKK. Öcalan, captured in Kenya in 1999, was brought to Türkiye and was sentenced to life in 2002. He is now incarcerated in Imralı, a prison island in the Marmara Sea. “Let them declare that the terrorism is over, and the PKK is dissolved. If he consents to do so, there should be legal amendments for the right to hope,” he said.
Remarks are unusual for the nationalist leader. Yet, Bahçeli’s rhetoric did not actually deviate from his policies for those familiar with the MHP’s principles. The MHP is a staunch supporter of the government’s counterterrorism efforts, which is criticized by the DEM Party, and Bahçeli insisted in his speech to a parliamentary group meeting of his party in the capital, Ankara, that the counterterrorism operations are a must to eradicate the PKK.
The MHP leader was spotted shaking hands with members of the DEM Party and in a candid conversation with main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel during the reopening of Parliament earlier this month. He tied these rare instances of amity with the two parties he has repeatedly slammed to the need for unity in Turkish politics amid an expanding war in the wider region.
“I will be straightforward today. It is time to go beyond the usual discourse. I hope this will be the first step to unshackle the chain on our nation,” he said. Bahçeli also said Türkiye did not need a new “reconciliation process” as some claimed his handshake with the DEM Party paved the way. “We need common sense, honest and sincere steps and we need to bolster our brotherhood by going back a thousand years instead of accepting things imposed on us by foreign powers,” he said. The reconciliation process refers to the AK Party government’s past efforts to end the so-called Kurdish question the PKK exploited and restore the rights of the Kurdish community. “Türkiye has no problem with Kurds, but it has a problem with this separatist terrorist group. It is obligatory to resolve the problems of our Kurdish brothers and sisters, but confining this issue to a collective ethnic basis is dangerous. The ‘Kurdish question’ means Kurds are a problem for Türkiye and defining the matter this way is a propaganda imposed by pawns of global imperialism,” he said.
Bahçeli lamented that Türkiye had to allocate enormous resources for counterterrorism and said that ending terrorism would give a sigh of relief to people in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern region.
“The PKK is condemned to fail. They cannot achieve anything through terrorism. Türkiye will never bow down to separatist terrorism. The only way of salvation for the PKK is to lay down their arms and turn themselves into Turkish justice,” he said.
Responding to statements by leaders of the DEM Party who earlier said the issue could be resolved only through the inclusion of Öcalan, the MHP leader said that the confinement of Öcalan should be lifted and he should speak at Parliament. “If he has this resolve, legal amendments should be made for his right to hope. This issue should be resolved through Imralı and the DEM Party, not Edirne or Qandil,” he said. Edirne is the northwestern city where the former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) is imprisoned. The HDP is the spiritual predecessor of the DEM Party. The Qandil Bahçeli mentioned is the mountain where senior cadres of the terrorist group hide in northern Iraq.
The DEM Party was the first to respond to Bahçeli. Party co-chair Tülay Hatimoğulları said at a parliamentary group meeting minutes after Bahçeli's speech that they were ready to take the initiative for a "dignified peace" and that ending the confinement of Öcalan could be "a beginning." The party also decided to hold an extraordinary meeting later on Tuesday.
A few hours later, President Erdoğan, in his address to the AK Party's provincial chairs, highlighted their efforts to maintain unity in the country. He reiterated the words of Sufi mystic Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli to "keep the doors open for everyone based on love and respect."
"The opposition has to abandon the ugly language it resorted to and turn a new page in politics. We cannot let greedy politicians undermine this climate of change," Erdoğan, who reached out to bitter rival CHP after recent municipal elections, said.
"The policy of tensions will be a loss for the nation and the country. The government and the opposition should not fight," he said.
Erdoğan underlined that they would never tolerate those undermining democracy and said terror had no place in Türkiye's future. "We hope this historic window of opportunity will not fall victim to personal ambitions (of politicians) and to build a terror-free Türkiye," he stated.
