Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said that peace talks between the government and the Kurdish party will be conducted directly without any third party involvement.
“We don’t need any third party observer for our reconciliation process; we already have the Wisemen Board,” Davutoğlu told journalists accompanying him on his way back from the Philippines.
The Turkish government launched the solution process last year, aiming to secure an end to the decades-long conflict with the terrorist organization, which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people.
Davutoğlu stated that the process is a natural result of the democratization process.
Turkey’s National Intelligence head Hakan Fidan and his deputy director, Afet Güneş, negotiated a peace deal with the senior PKK officials in Oslo in 2011.
By recalling the bitter experiences of the Oslo peace talks, which were mediated by foreign intelligence, Davutoğlu said, “This is Turkey’s own fact and will be solved by the dialogue between citizens.”
The Turkish premier said that they established the reconciliation process mechanism immediately after forming the 62nd government.
Davutoğlu outlined three specific measures taken by his government on the way to the peace process, “We gave an official form to the peace process mechanism. We prepared the Internal Security Reform package and unveiled the medium-term economic program.”
He warned everyone from a probable negative environment in next year, “There is a probability to face a negative environment in June 2015. We passed successfully all the critical periods, such as the President and Prime Minister elections. We are heading on our way by taking precautions against all kinds of negative circumstances.”
Davutoğlu also recalled the major political incidents, which took place this year. He quoted 2014 as a fraught year for Turkey. This year Turkey saw many incidents like the Gezi Park incidents, the December 17-25 operations and the Kobane protests.
He claimed all of these incidents have occurred on social bases.
“The Gezi protests were based on city society, the Dec. 17-25 operations were based on religious appearances and the Kobane protests were based on ethnicity,” he added.
"When we make progress on the way to the peace process, they sabotage it."
Davutoğlu underlined that their government fulfilled major demands form Kurdish citizens. He said Kurds demanded the lifting of an emergency rule in east and southeastern provinces and all restrictions against the Kurdish language and Kurdish music, which were provided by our Justice and Development Party, or AK Party government.
“They also demand,” he continued, “the right to speak Kurdish in prisons, the freedom of political propaganda in the Kurdish language and television broadcasting in the Kurdish language. We fulfilled these demands too.”
Davutoğlu said his government did all of these developments not only for Kurdish citizens, but for all non-Muslim religious communities and Alevis.
“This shows the self-confidence of our state,” he added.
In early October, some illegal demonstrations erupted after the Peoples' Democratic Party, or HDP, issued a call, via social media, inviting its sympathizers to take to the streets as a sign of solidarity with Syria's besieged Kurdish populated town of Kobane, which in turn led to an interruption of the solution process.
The call was followed by a week of violence that left at least 38 civilians and two police officers dead, along with scores of damaged vehicles, state buildings, political party offices and shops in Turkey.
“According to a recent survey on the Oct. 6-7 incident conducted by the government, our citizens from the southeast did not embrace the incident,” Davutoğlu said and continued, “The people demand public order. They understood that a clash in the region not only harms the government and certain groups. They will refuse all kind of violence.”
The prime minister also refused claims over Turkish links with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, militants.
“Despite Turkey's repeated refusal of any link with the terrorist (organization) ISIL, the international media continue to articulate it,”
He said that the international arena with its local actors aimed to drop the government into weakness with this propaganda campaign.
Davutoğlu challenged the question of if any of the ISIL leaders were from Turkey. He also refused claims that Turkey allowed foreign fighters to pass through Turkey into Syria.
He said that he had a long conversation with a high-profiled European foreign minister about the foreign fighters issue, and Davutoğlu requested him to prevent them from leaving the country. But the minister refused his request by citing Europe’s democracy.
“We are democratic countries; we cannot prevent the freedom of travel for someone who didn’t commit any crime,” Davutoğlu quoted the European minister, and continued, “I asked him, ‘Isn’t Turkey a democratic country?’ We also can’t prevent our tourists (from traveling) without any crime.”
Davutoğlu said the Turkish government prevented the entry of 7000 people into the country, according to the foreign fighters list provided by other countries.
Recalling ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s imprisonment in Iraq and other leading figures in the Abu Ghraib prison, Davutoğlu underlined, “Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison were not under the control of Turkey.”
A huge number of militants and cadres were released from the prisons of Syrian President Bashar el-Assad.
Davutoğlu said former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri el-Maliki informed them about this and asked Turkish help when Turkey had a good relation with the Syrian regime.
He also blamed European countries for not accepting Syrian refugees.
“We opened our door to all Syrian refugees without making any ethnic discrimination. More than 1.5 million Kurds are taking shelter in Turkey. What did PYD do in Syria for Kurds? They made a deal with Bashar Assad, who did not even recognize Kurds as Syrian citizens. The PYD were there when Assad killed Kurdish people. Europe did not protect the Kurds who fled from embattled Kobane; Turkey protected them. Turkey opened its door to Syrian Kurds, not any European country,” Davutoğlu said.
