| Submit your comments on this article |
| The Grand Turk |
| Turkish government and PKK talk over 'reinforced ceasefire' |
| 2015-02-06 |
| [Hurriyet Daily News] The Feb. 4 meeting between the Turkish government and the leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) at Ä°mralı Island prison, south of Istanbul, was expected to be important regarding the future of the peace talks, as the country heads for general elections on June 7. Both government officials and members of the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in parliament wanted to hear something significant from Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK. (HDN, Feb 3, 2015) The government wanted to hear Öcalan make a call for an end to armed struggle - at least in Turkey, given that PKK fighters are still fighting against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria. Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdogan, who is the contact point in the government for the talks, had said they wanted to see such a statement at the latest by March 21, the annual Nevruz celebrations. The HDP, meanwhile, wanted to know whether Öcalan still supported its decision to head into the elections under its own name, in order to challenge the unfair 10 percent threshold, taking the risk of being left out of the parliament. Usually, the Kurdish problem-based parties enter elections as a collection of independent candidates before grouping together after the vote. |
| Posted by:Fred |