Chronology of Peace Process in Turkey

You will find below a day by day chronology of the important events and statements related to the Peace Process, which officially commenced after the Newroz celebrations in 2013. The chronology will be regularly updated in light of recent events. This work is based on [the reports of] İMC TV, Al Jazeera Türk, Wikipedia, bianet, Kurdistan Center for Strategic Studies, the chronology prepared by İrfan Aktan and various other sources.

PYD Co-Chairperson Salih Muslim said, “The June 25 Kobani attack was the outcome of a major plan, and Turkey was definitely involved in this plan at a political level, or a different level. The attacks were carried out via Turkey, the ammunition was brought through Turkey”.

AKP Spokesperson Beşir Atalay argued that the solution process would again gather speed once the new government is formed.

The HPG stated that the increase observed in the mobility [activity] of the Turkish army continued, and that the Turkish Army continued its massacres targeting the natural heritage of Kurdistan in many areas and especially in Botan by starting forest fires.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan said that the solution process had not ended, adding, “A coalition government will be formed, and the process will function within the framework agreed upon with the other party. It may be referred to differently, but we remain loyal to the content and spirit of the process”.

In the third round of coalition talks, the AKP visited the HDP. It was reported that the solution process rather than coalition talks had been the focus of the meeting. The HDP presented the AKP Delegation with a document containing the headings, Democracy, Justice and Peace. İmralı Delegation Spokesperson Sırrı Süreyya Önder said that no search to form a government could be carried out independently of the peace and solution process.

The forest fire that started in forested land on Cudi Mountain, which caused the destruction of more than 5 thousand fruit trees and many animals to perish could only be put out after three days. Allegedly caused by mortars fired from the Çalışkan Border Military Battalion, the inadequacy of attempts to fight the fire was criticized.

The HDP Central Executive Committee (MYK) made a written statement condemning the isolation implemented on PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.

The İHD (Human Rights’ Association) Diyarbakır/Amed Bureau announced its report on rights’ violations in the region that took place in the first 6 months of 2015. The report stated that a total of 6 thousand 912 rights’ violations had taken place.

İmralı Delegation member Pervin Buldan commented on the İmralı ban imposed on the delegation, saying, “It is probable that the State is considering a new format regarding the process. However, we have no information regarding this format. They are probably communicating this format to Mr. Öcalan, but Mr. Öcalan may be opposing it”.

An attack took place on a municipal vehicle in the Göle district of Ardahan. All claimed to be HDP members, 65 year old Kanber Morkoç, father of a guerrilla, lost his life in the attack, while Sabri Morkoç and Altan Akın were injured. A first statement made by the Ardahan Governorate declared that the attack had been carried out by the PKK, and mainstream media published reports that supported this statement.

The KCK Executive Council Co-Directorate made a statement on the ceasefire that has continued for 2,5 years, declaring, “Our Freedom Movement will no longer accept the exploitation of our ceasefire position, and will take a stance against policies that have left the Kurdish question unsettled. We will no longer tolerate those who exploit our patient and reasonable position, and implement a policy of delay diversion”. The statement also voiced the claim that the State was “seeking to depopulate Kurdistan” with dam and kalekol constructions, also referring to arrests targeting the Kurdish political movement.

The İmralı Delegation stated that making the ending of the solution process a matter of negotiation in coalition talks led to “alarm bells” ringing for peace. The delegation stated that obstacles preventing the delegation holding meetings with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan had to be removed, and that the solution process had to become State policy for the new government that was to be formed.

Democratic Society Congress (DTK) Co-Chairperson Selma Irmak said, “Mr. Öcalan must be free to secure permanent peace. Without Mandela, no one could have secured peace in South Africa between peoples. In the same manner, without Abdullah Öcalan, no one can secure a lasting peace in Turkey”.

Selahattin Demirtaş said, “There is a solution process that has been left half-finished. Let us begin anew, not from where we left, but let us now make it a transparent process, and involve Parliament, too. Let us have negotiations under equal conditions. Let us carry out a process with the involvement of an observation committee, with decisions taken brought to Parliament and made law. This should then be followed by disarmament, so that internal peace can be secured”.

Following an ISIS attack on Kobani, 206 people, a majority of them children and women, lost their lives, and more than 300 people were injured. At a time when YPG had captured Tell Abyad, and advanced towards Raqqa, how ISIS had infiltrated controlled areas was widely debated. The possibility of ISIS entering the area through Turkey, and claims that ISIS members fleeing the clash that ensued following the attack had taken shelter in Turkey were mentioned.

KCK Executive Council Co-Chairperson Cemil Bayık stated that isolation was imposed on Abdullah Öcalan, and that the reason for this was Öcalan’s persistence regarding the declaration announced on February 28, and his demand for negotiations to begin. Bayık said, “The continuation of isolation means war. We have always stated this clearly, the way our Leader is treated is reason for war or peace”.

HDK announced the final declaration of its General Assembly Meeting held on 21 June. The declaration saluted the expelling of ISIS from Tell Abyad (Girê Spî), and demanded an end to the isolation imposed on PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.

The meeting application of Öcalan’s family with Abdullah Öcalan, who has been prevented from meeting with the İmralı Delegation since April 5, was also rejected.

KCK Executive Council Co-Chairperson Cemil Bayık said, “It is absolutely impossible for us to accept as a solution process a meeting where Leader Apo cannot hold negotiations under free conditions… It is impossible to achieve any result under circumstances where Leader Apo, the chief negotiator, cannot hold negotiations under free conditions. Or rather, a political mindset that does not hold dialogue and negotiations with Leader Apo under free conditions is in any case not sincere regarding the solution”.

HDP Co-Chairperson Figen Yüksekdağ stated that a possible AKP-CHP coalition would have to make progress in the solution process in order to succeed.

HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş stated that each statement made by KCK executives was valuable, saying, “We perceive them as statements made in order to contribute to searches for a solution, democracy and peace. They should not be perceived as directives issued to the HDP”.

KCK Executive Council Co-Chairperson Bese Hozat stated that Turkey had entered a new period with the June 7 general election, saying, “AKP has wasted all the chances it was given,” adding that an arbitrary peace could be possible if equal negotiation conditions were prepared and Parliament became part of the process. Hozat emphasized that for the continuation of the process, official negotiations had to begin, and that such negotiations had to be carried out in a transparent manner, saying, “In this sense, the place where the Kurdish question can be solved is Parliament. Such a process would create its own solution”. Hozat drew attention to the fact that it was an absolute necessity to have a third eye observer in such a process, adding that from now on, both written and visual records of every meeting held at İmralı Island had to be kept, and that documents had to be signed.

The application by Abdullah Öcalan’s lawyers to meet with their client was rejected on the grounds that the ferry to İmralı was “in maintenance”.

YPG forces seized Tel Abyad (Girê Spî from ISIS. Described as an important base for ISIS after Raqqa, Tel Abyad is of strategic importance also for the Kurds because of its location between the Jazira and Kobani Cantons.

Deputy Prime Minister and AKP Spokesperson Beşir Atalay said that it had been wrong to halt the solution process before the elections, and that this decision had led to the AKP losing votes in the region. Responding to a question on the issue, Atalay said, “Just when everything was planned and progressing, and when we were almost taking the final steps for disarmament, the creation before the election of an atmosphere as if the process was, in a sense, being postponed until after the election, or its suspension, has been a contributing cause”.

İmralı Delegation Member and Diyarbakır/Amed Member of Parliament İdris Baluken drew attention to the fact that the process had been cut short “on the imminent eve of permanent peace,” adding, “The process must continue from this point”. Baluken also reminded that they had not been able to meet with Öcalan for two and a half months.

İmralı Delegation Spokesperson Sırrı Süreyya Önder made a statement to the press following the application they made to the Ministry of Justice to hold a meeting with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. Önder demanded the establishment of a “national coalition”, the involvement in the solution process of an observation committe and an end to the isolation imposed on Öcalan, condemning the AKP and Erdoğan’s anti-solution policies.

The KCK Executive Council Co-Directorate stated that the AKP Government, which in its 10 years in power had not taken steps for democratization and the solution of the Kurdish question and aggravated problems by making no headway, had come to an end with the June 7 election, adding that new policies had to be introduced. The KCK statement declared, “These new policies are consolidated ceasefire, the freedom of chief negotiator Leader Apo and legal and constitutional reassurances for the agreed upon solution steps via the involvement of Parliament,” adding that a pluralist democratic constitution was necessary for the solution of all problems.

The HDP announced a 15-article final declaration following the Party Caucus it held today. The declaration stated, “As the HDP Caucus, we call upon the new government, whichever parties it may include, to continue the ‘Solution Process’ from where it left off. We also demand an immediate end to the isolation imposed on Mr. Öcalan, who is the architect of the ‘Solution Process’, who insisted on peace through all critical periods, and who led the way in the ‘Solution Process’”.

In Diyarbakır/Amed, Yeni İhya Der (The New Rejuvenation Cooperation and Solidarity Association) Chairperson and HÜDA PAR (The Free Cause Party) member Aytaç Baran lost his life in an armed attack. 3 more people lost their lives following an attack carried out with long barrelled weapons in the Şehitlik neighbourhood. HDP and DTK executives issued a public call for calm and common sense.

The verdict was declared in the KCK Trial in Van involving 16 Kurdish politicians. A total of 149 years imprisonment on charges of “membership of an illegal organization” was imposed in the summary judgment hearing of the trial that had continued since 2012.

HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş made a statement on the attacks in Diyarbakır/Amed, saying, “The President and Prime Minister of the country remain silent. Certain groups have taken action to trigger civil war in the country, and the Prime Minister is nowhere to be seen. The President is nowhere to be seen, the ministers have gone missing. The Interior Minister and the Minister of Justice have said nothing. They are probably waiting for turmoil to flare up, for civil war to begin in the country so that they can say, ‘See, and understand the value of the AKP. Once the AKP has lost power, the country has drifted into chaos and disorder’. We will not allow that to happen”.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan commented on the election results, saying, “In my opinion, the events that took place during this process will show everyone in a better way, and enable it to be better understood that the AK Party is in fact the only guarantee of security and stability, the only guarantee of the Solution Process, and the only guarantee of the new constitution. Now that the HDP has received 13% of the vote, they should call on Qandil for the PKK to disarm”.

Maksut Doğancıoğlu, who was claimed to work in border trade along the Rojava border of the Akçakale District of Urfa, was murdered by a Turkish Army soldier.

HDP’li vekiller patlama alanını ziyaret ediyor.

A bomb attack was carried out on an HDP rally organized at Diyarbakır/Amed İstasyon Square. Following two consecutive explosions, 5 people lost their lives, and more than 400 people were injured. The alleged igniter of the bombs, Orhan Gönder, was claimed to have been captured in Antep, that he had pleaded guilty, and that he was a member of ISIS. Gönder was arrested on charges of “premeditated murder and membership of an illegal organization. It was also claimed that Gönder had entered Turkey a few days before the rally, and that he had been struck off the Police surveillance list on the day of the attack.

In a press statement, the Human Rights Association drew attention to the fact that the attacks targeting the HDP during the election period were carried out by a special gang structure tolerated by the State. The statement summarized developments from 23 March to 5 June 2015 as follows: “The number of ambushes, attacks, threats and police raids carried out on HDP election bureaus/vehicles, candidates, rallies and workers has reached 176. 7 of these attacks were armed attacks, 5 of them were bomb-attacks, while 4 of them were arson-attacks. 5 people lost their lives in these attacks, while 522 people were injured. Instead of preventing these attacks, the exact opposite course of action was adopted, and 185 HDP members were detained -33 of which who declared they were tortured in detention.”

Hamdullah Öğe, driver of an HDP election vehicle that came under fire from long-barreled firearms as it approached the Serpmekaya village of Karlıova for election campaigning, passed away. Details of the attack later emerged, revealing that Öğe had been forced to leave the vehicle, was tortured, and then executed by shooting squad.

HDP Hizan District Co-Chairperson Abdulkerim Gültekin suffered a brain haemorrhage after he was heavily injured following a blow to his head when village guards attacked HDP members carrying out election campaign work in Siirt.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu announced that they had determined 10 articles comprising structural issues they would prioritize on June 8, stating that the first three were the new Constitution, the solution process, and social consensus. Davutoğlu added that the solution process had reached deadlock on the issue of “disarmament”.

AKP Chairperson Ahmet Davutoğlu faced intense protests at an election rally he held in Van. Hundreds of people gathered in the square booed AKP Erzurum parliamentary candidate Efkan Ala when he was invited to the stage. The police carried out a violent intervention on the protesting group, detaining tens of people.

The daily Cumhuriyet newspaper published footage of ammunition including mortars, artillery and rifle ammunition transported to Syria in trailer trucks belonging to MİT, which were stopped on 19 January 2014 following a tip-off. An investigation on “terror” charges was launched against the newspaper. Former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and government officials had claimed at the time that the trailer trucks were not carrying weapons but foodstuff for Turkmens. Prime Minister Davutoğlu stated that the aid was sent to Bayırbucak Turkmens.

A checkpoint was formed at Muş’s Varto District by the armed forces, vehicles and citizens were subjected to identity checks and searches.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan tweeted, “No one should be surprised if Demirtaş, who allows himself to be used by the lobby trying to end the solution process, turns into Brutus in the eyes of İmralı Island after the election”.

Shopkeepers in Yüksekova carried out a collective closing-up-shop action before the arrival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu for the opening ceremony of the newly completed airport. HDP and BDP executives announced that they would not attend the opening ceremony of the airport for which construction had begun in 2010. State officials arriving in the town for the opening were met with protests from the public. The police attacked citizens gathering to protest Erdoğan and Davutoğlu. A child named Duran İşleyen (10) was injured in one eye by a plastic bullet in the police attack.

4 persons including President of the Turanist Movement Platform Hasan Karabey, who forced two Kurdish students into the basement of the Atsız Culture House Association in Kadıköy, tied their hands and mouths and tortured them, were taken to Kartal Court after being held at the Kadıköy District Police Directorate for four days. The suspects were released by the Duty Prosecutor despite evidence from CCTV camera footage of a store showing them forcing the two students into the association building.

KCK Executive Council member Murat Karayılan said, “The Turkish Army is displaying a certain mobility aimed at breaching the rules of ceasefire. If it were not for the outstanding care and sensitivity of our forces, clashes could have taken place in many areas by now”. Karayılan added, “I clearly state that we will not opt for violence in any manner, especially until the election is concluded. If any violent incident does occur, it should be known now that it will be caused by State forces. This is clear from our viewpoint”.

İmralı Delegation Spokesperson Sırrı Süreyya Önder stated that the AKP cowered in the face of the interest shown to the HDP, and isolated Öcalan in order to legitimize war.

Making a statement on the bomb attacks carried out on the HDP Adana and Mersin provincial headquarters, HDP Adana parliamentary candidate Meral Danış Beştaş stated that they did not believe statements made regarding the identity of the attacker, and that the Prime Minister and the Interior Minister had made “false statements”. Beştaş underlined the fact that they did not think that Savaş Yıldız, the person named as the perpetrator, was a DHKP-C member, adding, “In Turkey, people perceived as perpetrators are either Kurds or leftists. We condemn this stance displayed by the government. They are almost saying that we bombed ourselves”.

Muş Governor Vedat Büyükersoy stated that the gendarmerie specialist corporal and satellite control personnel on field work duty allegedly detained by the PKK had been released during the previous night. It was stated that the 2 persons were at the Varto District Police Directorate and that the investigation continued.

The Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD) and the Mesopotamia Lawyers Association (MHD) stated that the prohibition imposed on PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan since 27 July 2011 that prevented him from meeting with his lawyers was a violation of law, the constitution, ECHR and legal precedents.

İmralı Delegation Member İdris Baluken stated that Prime Minister Davutoğlu had confessed with his statements that Öcalan was being kept in isolation, adding that only the KCK and Öcalan could take the decision regarding “disarmament”. Baluken stated that it was an immediate necessity for them to meet with Öcalan, warning that the AKP would initiate a comprehensive war if it succeeded at the election.

In a report, the Human Rights Association assessed violations against political parties during parliamentary election campaigns that took place from 23 March to 19 May 2015. According to the report, 126 attacks took place, of which 114 were against the HDP; 49 people, 47 of them HDP members, were injured in these attacks. 125 HDP members were detained by security forces during election campaigning, 8 were arrested, while 32 of them reported being subjected to torture and maltreatment.

In the İspiriz Mountains of Hakkari’s Yüksekova District, special operation units launched an operation supported by helicopters and drones unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs]. The units attacked civilians that went to the operation area to prevent clashes with CS-gas bombs. Levent Dere received a head injury after being hit by a CS-gas cannister.

It was reported that a specialist corporal and a satellite personnel who disappeared in the Varto District of Muş could have been abducted by the PKK.

The İmralı Delegation that met with KCK executives in Qandil, held a press conference in Diyarbakır/Amed on its return. The delegation said in a statetment, “KCK executives declared that they had frozen preparations for a Congress that would have focused on the solution process because of the conduct displayed by President Erdoğan and the AKP government; and especially stated that the KCK was ready to summon Congress within a single day if necessary if the AKP government were to take steps in related matters regarding the process”.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu stated that PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was not under isolation, that the solution process would not progress if no steps were taken regarding disarmament, and that the continuation of visits to İmralı was not meaningful as long as the step of disarmament was not taken.

KCK Executive Council Co-Chairperson Bese Hozat said, “Erdoğan has reverted to a discourse of denial and destruction. In this sense, there is no process in progress. There is no dialogue process either. The dialogue process has been stopped at this stage. And in its current state, it has been abolished”. Cemil Bayık also made a statement saying that they were aiming to call a PKK Congress on the basis of the Dolmabahçe consensus, and were carrying out preparations for it, adding, “But Erdoğan’s intervention in the process, his rejection of negotiations, his rejection of coming to the table, his rejection of one of the parties, and his statement, ‘There is no Kurdish question, it is separatism, whoever speaks of negotiations and parties, this means bringing down the State of Turkey,’ abolished in essence the conditions to realize the Congress”.

In Hakkari’s Yüksekova district, in incidents that began following the funeral ceremony of YPG fighter Mazlum Altekin (Botan Gever), F.Ö. (14) was injured when he was hit by a CS gas cannister fired by police.

The İmralı Delegation, having received no response to its request for a meeting with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, with whom they held the last meeting on April 5, travelled to Qandil to assess the most recent point the process was at with KCK executives.

HDP Ankara Parliamentary Candidate and İmralı Delegation Spokesperson Sırrı Süreyya Önder drew attention to the statements regarding the attacks carried out against their party made by government officials and Erdoğan that presented them as a target. Önder also commented on the ‘solution process’, saying, “According to the consensus we reached with the government, we should have carried out a routine visit to the island in 15-20 days at most”.

Bomb attacks were carried out on the Adana and Mersin headquarters of the HDP.

The “Diyarbakır/Amed Prison Coordination Center”, the first concrete step towards Diyarbakır/Amed Prison’s transformation into a museum, was opened by witnesses of that period of atrocities, and relatives of those who lost their lives in resistances against the atrocities.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan stated that the HDP was creating every obstacle imaginable in the solution process, and that it would mean nothing even if the HDP did pass the election threshold.

HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş stated that the process was now frozen, that the party delegation had not been able to visit İmralı Island for more than two months, and that at the moment isolation was imposed on Öcalan.

KCK Executive Council member and People’s Defence Center Commander Murat Karayılan made critical assessments regarding the solution process, saying, “We are carefully observing the process, and are trying to prevent provocations. Our actions are based on unilateral ceasefire. The isolation in İmralı constitutes for us a cause for war. We, as the HPG, are waiting for Leader Apo’s orders, and are continuing to observe the unilateral ceasefire within this framework. However, everyone should know that there is a limit to everything”.

A large number of armoured vehicles and soldiers that exited the District Gendarmerie Commande in the Varto district of Muş in the early hours of the morning sealed entrances to and exits from the district. As police forces also took up position along the main streets in the district centre with water cannons, the reason for the mobility remained unclear.

Around 2 years after the murder of Medeni Yıldırım during the protest held in Lice against a kalekol construction, a crime scene investigation was carried out.

Police, having formed a barricade between the HDP and MHP stands opened in front of the entrance gate of Gaziantep University Campus, then attacked students that had opened the HDP stand with CS-gas bombs and water cannons, and detained a large number of students.

11 of the 12 persons detained in the investigation launched in Diyarbakır/Amed on 8 May against YDG-H members were arrested.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, “Who is in Kobani at the moment? Around 60 thousand people. And they are people who have returned from Turkey. Now they are exploiting this situation. There are almost no Arabs left in Kobani. In other words, a very different method is being implemented in the region. This begins in Afrin, and extends towards Kobani and Qamışlı. Their target now is to connect these points. Their efforts aim to form a certain ethnicity there. USA has only now begun to realize this. So we said, you have to discuss what is to be done here with us. Our teams are carrying out work for this purpose at the moment. The train-and-equip program has begun”.

PKK Executive Council member Duran Kalkan said, “We are under attack as a movement and as a people following President Tayyip Erdoğan’s anti-solution stance, especially since Newroz. We declare that this is the beginning of a new process”. Kalkan added that because of Erdoğan and the AKP’s stance against democratization and the solution process which hindered the negotiations process they had frozen the congress preparations that had progressed significantly.

Women from women’s organizations, political parties and unions came together on 9-10 May at the “Workshop for Women’s Liberation in the Democratic Solution and Negotiations Process”. The final declaration of the workshop announced that participants had decided to continue work as the “Women’s Liberation Assembly”.

The “Democratic Islam Congress”, proposed by PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, and for which preparations had been continuing for months, gathered in Diyarbakır/Amed. The final declaration of the Congress stated, “For peace to become permament, legal regulations must urgently come into force, by also taking into consideration the negotiation methods of the Charter of Medina”, calling on Islamic circles to recognize their responsibilities and actively participate in the peace process.

Diyarbakır/Amed Police Directorate units went to HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş’s home in Kayapınar, demanding to carry out a search stating that a person sought in connection with various crimes resided at the address. Demirtaş’s family stated that the person in question did not live at the address and reminded officers that the residence belonged to Demirtaş. Diyarbakır/Amed Police Directorate Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime units then stated that they had been sent to Demirtaş’s residence following a tip-off to 155, the crime report line. In the investigation that followed, it was claimed that a police officer at the communications center had made a mistake in the registration of a report regarding sought criminals. Police Commissioner Halis Böğürcü announced that the operator who spoke to the person providing the report had been dismissed on orders from the Governor. At a television program he attended, Demirtaş said, “It is not normal for police to come knocking at my door at a time so close to the election and in the middle of such a critical process”.

The Bursa 3rd Heavy Penal Court, in a lawsuit filed on charges against PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s lawyers İbrahim Bilmez and Muhdi Öztüzün for “conveying information regarding the organization and receiving information on actions to be taken” in the meeting they held with Öcalan, ruled that the audio recording made with authorization from the Execution Magistracy constituted “illegal evidence” and acquitted the two lawyers.

A woman who entered the AKP’s rally area in Ağrı was battered and detained by police when she made the victory sign associated with the Kurdish movement.

Pervin Buldan, commenting on Yalçın Akdoğan’s words, “It would be superb if the HDP were not to pass the election threshold,” said that Akdoğan should stop worrying about the HDP and focus on filling the other side of the table at İmralı and form the observation committee. Buldan drew attention to the fact that President Erdoğan, Prime Minister Davutoğlu and Akdoğan were all trying to block the process, emphasizing that this process was too valuable to be sacrificed for the sake of an election, and that it would continue whether the AKP was involved or not.

KCK Executive Council Co-Chairperson Bese Hozat stated that the process had been ended by the AKP, saying, “Holding our congress is not on our agenda at the moment, because the process did not work, and no steps were taken. The PKK would have held its congress in response to steps taken by the State. We have removed the congress from our agenda.”

Police attacked a group reacting to AKP parliamentary candidates taking part in the opening ceremony of an electoral bureau in Van’s Erciş district, injuring 1 person.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan said, “Now some say, this or that will happen if we do not pass the electoral threshold. Yet I say, nothing will happen. It would be superb, it would be fine. Because when AK Party initiated this process in 2005, they did not have a single member of parliament… Tayyip Erdoğan initiated this process, AK Party initiated this process. The owner of this process is the AK Party government”.

HDP filed an application with the Supreme Electoral Council on grounds that President Erdoğan was turning the HDP into a target, and that he was exploiting religion. The application underlined that Erdoğan was violating electoral prohibitions, stating, “We express our hope that the necessary precautions, including a warning to the Office of Presidency, and compliance with broadcast principles, are taken, and that our party is informed about the outcome”.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in a speech he made in Batman where he came to take part in opening ceremonies, said, “Saying that there is a Kurdish question is discrimination. It would mean we separate the solution of the problem of my Kurdish brothers from others. Those who isolate the solution process in the bracket of the Kurdish question are creating a zone of exploitation. In the past, it was those who did not allow our Kurdish brother to say ‘I am a Kurd’ who were carrying out separatism, now a separatism is being practiced from the opposite direction”.

The two-day Reconstruction of Kobani Conference held with the slogan, “Reconstructing Kobani is protecting the values of humanity” began.

It was announed that DBP Co-Mayors would not take part in official programs during President Tayyip Erdoğan’s visits to Batman, Diyarbakır/Amed and Siirt on 2 May.

The İmralı Delegation made a statement on the phase the “solution process” had reached and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statements against the solution, saying, “The table has become obsolete at present because of the campaign of defamation carried out by the President. We will not allow ourselves or the public to be used in business that cannot be carried out with the seriousness required by official negotiations”. The Delegation added, “Mr. Öcalan’s status must be determined and declared to the public. Otherwise, we will not allow you to vulgarly and recklessly play around with the future of this people”.

Sırrı Süreyya Önder made a statement, saying, “I say this as the İmralı Negotiations Delegation Spokesperson, there is a table set up between the two parties. And that table was set up three months ago. There are people who sit at either side, and parties held several meetings at that table. The historical Dolmabahçe Consensus was secured at that table. That table is called the ‘Table of Peace and Democratic Solution’. That table was one of the most important democratic moves aimed at securing the unity, democracy and future of our country as systems in the Middle East collapse one after the other”.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, “Saying ‘There is a Kurdish question’ constitutes, from this point on, separatism. The Kurdish question is caused precisely by those who say that there is a Kurdish question. There is no longer a Kurdish question in our country. There is the State in this country. The existence of a table at which we sit facing each other means that the State has collapsed. The State does not lay down its arms, and if a terrorist bears arms, the State does what is necessary. This is why the issue of internal security is sensitive. The HDP resorted to illegal methods to make our work difficult”.

The HDP Election Declaration stated that “the 10 articles announced in the Dolmabahçe Consensus are accepted as the principal framework of the solution” under the heading “Kurdish Question and Solution Process”

The HPG Press Contact Center made a statement saying, “The intensifying increase in the military mobility of the Turkish army and its activities fuelling a platform for clashes continue. Such mobility, which has increased along the Şırnak border line and around the Haftanin region Medya Defense Zone, have reached a level that could trigger clashes at any moment”.

The “Solution Process” was added to the AKP Election Declaration as an appendix.

Soldiers opened fire on people who went to the exit of the village to prevent military operations targeting citizens engaged in border trade in the Yemişli Village, on the border line of Şırnak’s Uludere district, injuring 3 persons. According to the report of the İHD’s Şırnak Branch that carried out an investigation regarding the attack, a village guard injured in the attack stated that fire was opened without reason, and without any warning.

The KCK Executive Council Co-Directorate made a statement, saying, “This policy, which the government has built on conflict and tension, has resulted in a situation that considerably endangers both the solution and election processes. The HDP delegation’s İmralı visit has objectively been suspended. An observation committee has not been formed, and negotiations have not begun. The solution process, which is far too important to be sacrificed for the benefit of any political party or the election, has been frozen. At a point when the observation committee had to be formed and negotiations had to begin immediately, the AKP government took no steps in this process. It is Erdoğan’s directives that orient the process. Following Erdoğan’s statements, the AKP has presented a new concept and new policy regarding both the solution and election process. This policy is a policy of provocation and of the development of operations via tension and conflict”.

AKP Yozgat parliamentary candidate and former Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ claimed that the HDP’s decision to enter the election as a political party was part of an international project aiming to block the AKP’s path.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu responded to criticism regarding the absence of the solution process in their election declaration, saying: “This was due to some digital mishaps that took place when the text was sent off to the printer’s, and one or two pages went missing”.

An armed attack by unidentified individuals was carried out on the HDP Headquarters. Of the two persons detained in relation to the attack, one was released, while the other was arrested.

Former Interior Minister Efkan Ala, responding to claims that he had planned the incidents that took place in Ağrı, and that he had made a phone call to the Ağrı Governor for this end, described the claims as “immoral fabrications”. Ala also said, “We wish that the people do not let the HDP pass the election threshold”.

It was revealed that there was only one reference to the “solution process” in the AKP Election Declaration announced by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. The reference is made in the “What We Have Achieved” section of the declaration, and the solution is not mentioned in the section detailing the party’s plans for the future.

HDP Group Deputy Chairperson İdris Baluken said, “The solution process is progressing thanks to the efforts of Mr. Abdulah Öcalan. Despite the continuing solution process and our efforts, the AKP government has taken a decision to go to war in the most recent 13-hour National Security Council meeting. This is clear to us, and we can confirm that we have received this information,” adding that the incidents that took place in Ağrı were part of this decision.

İmralı Delegation Spokesperson Sırrı Süreyya Önder said, “The act of provocation carried out in Diyadin has revealed why the President does not want an Observation Committee, and why the government has done a U-turn on the existing consensus,” adding that the government will resort to many methods including a cancellation of the election in order to curb its loss of votes. The İmralı Delegation formed of HDP Group Deputy Spokesperson Pervin Buldan, Ceylan Bağrıyanık, Hatip Dicle and Leyla Zana announced that they would carry out inspections in Ağrı.

The General Staff Press and Public Relations Department Head Brigadier General Ertuğrulgazi Özkürkçü made a statement to the Anadolu Agency about the Ağrı incident, stating that gendarmerie units, which are public security forces, had been assigned by the Governor, saying, “This preemptive measure taken for security grounds has no connection with the Turkish Armed Forces”.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu refuted claims made by HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş, saying, “I will put this very clearly, Mr. Demirtaş is lying, and distorting the facts”. Davutoğlu added, “Is he the chairperson of a legitimate political party, or a defender of terror who defends and seeks to legitimize this type of terrorist activity carried out by armed elements of separatist terror organizations through pressure and in order to manipulate the people? Today is the day for everyone to clearly declare their positions”.

The Presidency of General Staff stated that clashes took place between army units and HPG guerrillas following the operation launched in the rural area of Yeşilova village in Şemdinli. The Presidency alleged on its website that army units were in the region to carry out an intervention against smugglers, and they were exposed to harassment fire from HPG forces.

The HPG Press Liaison Center made a written statement saying that claims regarding the Turkish army’s operation in Tendürek Mountain that “guerrillas took part in Spring celebrations and pressurized the public” were complete fabrications aimed at disinformation, and that they had not participated in any celebration. The statement added that there were fatalities as a result of fire opened by the Turkish Armed Forces on the public that came to the area to prevent the clashes that had ensued.

İKSV (Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts) stated that the documentary titled “North (Bakur)” directed by Çayan Demirel and Ertuğrul Mavioğlu about the PKK would not be screened due to its lack of a registration document from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Witnesses of the incident in Ağrı and HDP administrators claimed that injured soldiers had been left to die, and that the soldiers had been rescued by civilians. Video footage broadcast by the Dicle News Agency also showed civilians helping injured soldiers. The footage also featured a civilian telling soldiers, “We will teach you about humanity”. Ağrı Governor Musa Işın denied these claims. Turkish Armed Forces also made a statement, saying, “The help of our citizens who came to the area to our injured personnel was deemed praiseworthy, and represented a good example of the unity and togetherness of our nation”.

A clash took place between the PKK and military units in an area close to the Yukarıtütek village of Ağrı where a tree planting event was to be held by the HDP and DBP. In the clash, HDP Diyadin former District Co-Chairperson Cezmi Budak, and a guerrilla named Ferhat Kızılay (Canfeda Serhat) died, while 4 soldiers and MEYA-DER representative Cenap İlboğa were injured.

In its first statement regarding the incident, the Ağrı Governorate announced that the clashes had begun when soldiers came under fire. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also made a statement saying that the PKK aimed to “dynamite the peace environment and sabotage the solution process”. The HPG (People’s Defence Forces) also made a statement, declaring that the clashes began when “Turkish forces opened fire on PKK forces in the area”.

Savaş Koçyiğit, twice detained previously in connection to the attack on Bingöl Police Chief Atalay Ürker that took place on 9 October 2014, was arrested. Deputy Police Chief Atıf Şahin and police superintendent Hüseyin Hatipoğlu had died in the attack.

Serhat Savaş (17), seriously injured when a CS gas cannister fired by police struck his head during the Kobani protests in Gaziosmanpaşa, passed away.

The HPG Press Liaison Center announced that ‘In Diyarbakır/Amed’s Silvan district, the Turkish army has continued its dam construction despite all warnings, and upon the observation of increased military activity in this region, guerrilla forces fired warning shots on 2 armoured vehicles, 1 trailer truck and 1 minibus belonging to the Turkish army at 5 am on April 8’.

The objection filed by Kazanhan’s lawyer Filiz Ölmez to the verdict of lack of grounds for legal action regarding H.V., who was initially arrested in relation to Nihat Kazanhan’s murder in Cizre on January 24, but was later released after providing testimony, was accepted. The Cizre Heavy Penal Court ruled for police officer H.V. to be tried on charges of “voluntary manslaughter”.

The Peace Assembly of Turkey announced its report titled “Towards a Solution: Evaluation on Probabilities, Opportunities and Problems” in which it evaluated the past two years of the solution process and presented its proposals for the future.

The HPG announced that the ‘Turkish army increasingly continued to carry out ambushes’, and that there was ‘an attempt to draw guerrillas into clashes’.

The HDP Delegation travelled to İmralı Island where it held a meeting with Abdullah Öcalan.

The 69-article “Internal Security Package” debated in the General Assembly of Parliament since February 17, and was accepted, was ratified by President Erdoğan.

In a written statement issued on the occasion of Abdullah Öcalan’s birthday, the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) Headquarters pointed at Öcalan’s freedom as a “precondition of peace”.

In Bursa, 9 Kurdish students were physically attacked by a racist group referring to themselves as “Genç Atsızlar” [The Young Disciples of Atsız: Nihal Atsız was a racist, pan-Turkist ideologue of the early years of the Republic].

In Ağrı, 6 DBP members were arrested following morning raids on their homes on the grounds that they were “KCK Justice Commission” members.

Following an armed attack carried out by 2 persons on the Istanbul Police Headquarters, one of the attackers, Elif Sultan Kalşen, died, and one police officer was injured.

The HPG Press Liaison Center announced its 3-monthly statement on the war. According to the statement, the Turkish Armed Forces carried out 197 reconnaissance flights, 2 Kobra attacks, 134 tank and artillery attacks; 14 enforced clashes took place during the operations, 2 soldier fatalities were confirmed; 2 soldier injuries were confirmed and 5 military vehicles were damaged in clashes.

HDP Group Deputy Chairperson and Bingöl Member of Parliament İdris Baluken commented on new village guard recruitments in Bingöl, saying, “new village guard recruitments are perceived as practices evoking war rather than peace”.

A hostage crisis took place at Çağlayan Court House in Istanbul, resulting in the deaths of Public Prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz, who was in charge of the Berkin Elvan – The 15-year old boy who died on 11 March 2014 following a 269-day coma after being hit on the head by a tear-gas canister fired by a police officer in Istanbul during the Gezi Resistance – investigation, and Bahtiyar Doğruyol and Şafak Yayla, the two militants that carried out the action.

PKK Executive Council Member Duran Kalkan said, “If there has been a poisoning, it was Tayyip Erdoğan’s words that poisoned the process, in fact, it has been worse than a poisoning, his words have frozen the process”.

HDP Istanbul Member of Parliament and Negotiations Delegation Spokesperson Sırrı Süreyya Önder, HDP Amed Member of Parliament Leyla Zana, and KNK Co-Chairperson Nilüfer Koç travelled to Hewler/Erbil in South Kurdistan in order to convey the letters and messages Abdullah Öcalan sent to Kurdish political parties, with Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani and YNK Leader Jelal Talabani foremost among them.

Selahattin Demirtaş stated that the government had, since the beginning of the process, not taken steps that would meet expectations. Demirtaş underlined that all manners of provocative acts could take place during their election campaign, saying, “Look, if anything happens to us during the election campaign period, which is a possibility, it is my special request from all our friends; this ship must be sailed to the harbour”.

The Internal Security Package was accepted in Parliament.

Deputy Prime Minister responsible of the solution process Yalçın Akdoğan said, “The Solution Process is not a process that can be sacrificed for the sake of an election. It is a strategic issue. We will never take a step back from the Solution Process”.

The People’s Defense Center made a statement regarding the Dağlıca clash, underlining the fact that the HPG was acting in accordance of the “democratic solution strategy” to implement the requirements of ceasefire regulations. The statement pointed out that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) was intentionally and deliberately increasing military mobility, and that fire had been opened from certain military bases and stations along the border line in violation of ceasefire regulations, claiming that the TSK and AKP were implementing an election policy with the purpose of receiving votes from nationalist circles.

Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek stated during his Washington visit that there was “uncertainty, incoherence and indecision” in the struggle against ISIS. He added that “There are efforts to legitimize and portray in a sympathetic light certain terror organizations because they are fighting against DAESH. Our region is experiencing this mistake. This will cause further problems”.

HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş stated that following the President’s statement, the issues of “observation committee, commencement of negotiations, and congress” had been rendered unclear despite a previously-achieved full consensus. Demirtaş claimed that there was a crisis within the AKP, and that this crisis would harm the process if the Observation Committee was not formed, and visits to İmralı Island ceased. Demirtaş added that 15 April had not been set as a date for the PKK Congress, and that consensus had been reached between the State-HDP-İmralı-Qandil for “the assembly of a congress during the Spring months”.

A statement made by the Turkish Armed Forces announced that PKK forces were carrying out mortar shelling in Dağlıca, and that the army had responded.

HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş stated that an Observation Committee was, rather than an indispensable exclusive demand of the HDP, a requirement in peace processes implemented across the world.

The Turkish Armed Forces announced that a military operation had been initiated in the Mazıdağı rural area of Mardin. A statement said, “Upon the approval of the Governorate, 5 teams squads are performing an operation. The operation continues as of now”.

The Turkish Armed Forces made a statement via its web site on PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s expression “Spirit of Eshme” included in his Newroz letter: “Broadcasts and news reports that have been published in certain press and broadcast outlets regarding the changing of place within the territory of SYRIA of the Süleyman Shah Post of Reverence in reference to an expression by the head terrorist – a person that we never have addressed and never will address – about the “SPIRIT OF ESHME” claiming that “the Turkish Armed Forces and the PYD/PKK collaborated” are entirely unsubstantiated; and in the presence of the Great Turkish Nation we strongly condemn these people and media organs who made such an imputation about the honourable, dignified and noble National Army, the Turkish Armed Forces, that has seen thousands of martyrs fall, and thousands of soldiers injured in carrying out an armed struggle against a terrorist organization that for 31 years has aimed to change the Constitutional order of the State of the Republic of Turkey.”

Responding to criticism of his statement ‘There is no Kurdish Question’, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, “Numerous coup attempts, numerous attacks, the Gezi events, the 17-25 December coup attempt, they were all staged to prevent the solution of my Kurdish brothers’ problems. But we did not bow down to any of them. Terror cannot determine our policies… You can make no contribution whatsoever if you do not put aside those weapons. In an environment where promises made were broken time and time again, we cannot progress any further without seeing concrete steps”.

After stating that he did not approve of an Observation Committee, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that he was also against the Dolmabahçe meeting consensus, and the 10-article-declaration.

Speakin at the Newroz celebration in Istanbul, HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş criticized President Erdoğan’s words, saying, “This Newroz has proved who wants democracy, and who embraces dictatorship”.

PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, in a letter he sent to the Newroz celebrations in Diyarbakır/Amed, saluted the Kobani victory and resistance, saying, “I salute the ‘Spirit of Eshme’ that has developed on this basis as a symbol of a new history between our peoples. All the points I have tried to set out above, in a single sentence, constitute a valuable call for the revision, restoration and reconstruction of our history and present contemporaneity as a society”.

Deputy Prime Minister and Government Spokesperson Bülent Arınç commented on President Erdoğan’s statements regarding the Observation Committee, saying, “Statements such as ‘I’m not happy with it, I don’t like it, I treat it coldly, or I treat it warmly’ are his own views. The responsibility of the process carried out by our government belongs to our government. It is not possible for him to be considered unaware of developments, our President knows everything very well”. Arınç stated that as the government, they were determined about the establishment of an Observation Committee.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in reference to Deputy Prime Minister Akdoğan’s statement regarding the Observation Committee, said, “I’m reading this in the newspapers. To be frank, I don’t know anything about it. And I’ll put this very clearly, I do not have a positive view of it. I had also said that we did not find it right when I was asked during my term as Prime Minister, “How would you view a group from within the Wise Persons Committee going there [to İmralı]?” I repeat my view now. As in every other country, from the beginning of the process, it is intelligence organizations that primarily conduct the process. During that period, we sent 3 members from the political party who have the representatives known to all. It was us who did that, too. What would it change if the number of members in that group were to be increased from 3 to 5, or 7”.

A delegation formed of HDP Group Deputy Chairpersons İdris Baluken and Pervin Buldan, Istanbul Member of Parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder, DTK Co-Chairperson Hatip Dicle and Ceylan Bağrıyanık travelled to İmralı Island. The delegation then made a written statement, declaring that Öcalan’s Newroz message had been conveyed to the delegation following the 4-hour meeting held today. It was added that work towards the establishment of an Observation Committee and the situation of Kurdish politicians in exile had been discussed at the meeting.

KCK Executive Council Co-Chairperson Cemil Bayık commented on President Erdoğan’s words, “Turkey has no Kurdish question” in a published article. Bayık stated that no politician that prioritizes the solution of the Kurdish question can have a future, adding, “At the point we are at, the policy of creating expectation and then implementing diversion strategies has been exposed. This policy has washed up on the shore. He either takes a step in the Kurdish question, or he goes”.

Prisoners Mehmet Sait Yıldırım, Ömer Hayri Konar, Çetin Arkaş, Nasrullah Kuran and Veysi Aktaş were transferred to İmralı Island.

President Erdoğan, speaking at a ceremony he attended, said, “Turkey has no Kurdish question. In Turkey, our Kurdish brothers have problems, like people from all sections of society. They have the problem that their identity is not recognized. They have the problem that their beliefs are not respected. They have problems such as underdevelopment, neglect and discrimination”.

A delegation formed of HDP Group Deputy Chairperson İdris Baluken and Ceylan Bağrıyanık travelled to Qandil to hold meetings within the scope of initiatives carried out in relation to the solution process.

Pervin Buldan’s statements regarding the Observation Committee were refuted by Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan. Akdoğan took to Twitter to write, “Some press outlets are announcing that a 16-person Observation Committee has been formed, and they are publishing lists of names. These are complete lies and fabrications. Making statements on the basis of a regular meeting held in Parliament that then leads to speculation does not match the serious nature of the process”.

The HDP Delegation also made a written statement, announcing that the necessity of forming an Observation Committee had been conveyed to Yalçın Akdoğan at the meeting held on 12 March, but the names to be included in the committee had not been discussed.

A HDP Delegation formed of Pervin Buldan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder held a meeting at TBMM with Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan. The first statement after the meeting was made by the HDP. Pervin Buldan announced that a 16-person Observation Committee had been formed and that HDP members would travel to İmralı Island with this committee, and that the committee would include wise persons, regional chairpersons, and a further 9 people yet to be determined.

Hakan Fidan, who had resigned to become a candidate for nomination at the June 7 elections, issued a written statement declaring the retraction of his nomination. Bülent Arınç announced that Fidan had been reappointed to his former position at MİT.

A delegation formed of HDP Member of Parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Diyarbakır/Amed Member of Parliament Leyla Zana travelled to İmralı Island to hold a meeting with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.

President Tayyip Erdoğan, in response to a question, declared that he was still resentful regarding disappointed with Hakan Fidan, saying: “If the National Intelligence Organization of the State is weak, then that State cannot survive. Now, we had appointed him to that position. It was me who appointed him. Since that is the case, when leaving, if he was not given permission to do so, he should have remained in duty, and not left. Therefore, I am still resentful”.

HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş responded to Arınç’s claims that the 10-article text had been changed, stating that the 10 articles that had been announced overlapped 99,9% with Öcalan’s call, and that they had not touched the text. Demirtaş explained the changes made to the text as follows: “In the first text, Öcalan’s expression was, ‘I will issue a call for the PKK to summon a congress’. The government asked for that to be changed. We said that a change could not be made without asking Öcalan. Then a consensus was reached, and in the second text the expression was changed as ‘I am now making a call’”.

Democratic Society Congress (DTK) Co-Chairpersons Selma Irmak and Hatip Dicle issued a written statement. Declaring that the solution process had evolved into a highly critical and important phase with the Dolmabahçe meeting and the 10-article draft text Öcalan presented, the statement issued a call to the State and government to fulfill the requirements of the draft text. As a first step, the retraction from Parliament of the Internal Security draft law was demanded.

Making a statement following a Cabinet meeting, Government Spokesperson Bülent Arınç strongly criticized Selahattin Demirtaş, claiming he was creating obstacles for the progress of the solution process, saying, “Demirtaş is not a person who shows well-intentioned efforts regarding the solution process, or desires this process to succeed. I hope from now on he won’t become involved in a movement that will sabotage this process”. Claiming that the text made public on 28 February had been changed, Arınç said, “The text that was read out was not the text presented to us, and that was to be accepted. 60% of the text was changed”.

Dolmabahçe’de çözüm süreci açıklaması

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan and Interior Minister Efkan Ala met with HDP Group Deputy Chairpersons Pervin Buldan, İdris Baluken and HDP Istanbul Member of Parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder at the Prime Minister’s Office in Dolmabahçe.

Önder, in a statement made following the meeting, conveyed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s main assessment regarding the stage the process has arrived at: “In taking this 30-year process of clashes to permanent peace, our main target is reaching a democratic solution. On principles that form the least common denominator, I invite the PKK to summon an extraordinary congress in Spring in order to make the strategic and historical decision on the basis of ending the armed struggle. This invitation is a historical declaration of intent aimed at replacing armed struggle with democratic politics.”

Önder then went on to list the headings forming the spine of peace in 10 clauses:
– Democratic politics, its definition and content
– Recognition of the national and local dimensions of the democratic solution
– Legal and democratic reassurances for free citizenship
– The relationship between the State and society and democratic politics and headings aimed towards its institutionalization
– Socioeconomic dimensions of the solution process
– Treatment of the democracy-security relationship in a manner that protects public order and freedoms throughout the process
– Legal solutions and reassurances for women’s, cultural, and ecological problems
– Development of a pluralist democratic approach regarding the recognition of the concept, definition and recognition of identity
– Definition of the democratic republic, common homeland and nation on the basis of democratic criteria, and the introduction of legal and constitutional reassurances within the pluralist democratic system
– A new constitution with a vision to internalize all these democratic moves and transformations.

Yalçın Akdoğan then said that they recognized the significance of the statement, saying, “We find important this statement on the acceleration of work towards disarmament, realization of a complete state of non-action and prioritization of democratic politics as a method”. These statements on the process would from this point on be referred to as the Dolmabahçe Consensus.

Deputy Prime Minister and Government Spokesperson Bülent Arınç made a statement regarding the expected joint statement by the İmralı Delegation and the government, saying, “A joint statement is not on the agenda”. Arınç also commented on the HDP, saying, “A fight is taking place. This fight is about Qandil constantly using its right of veto regarding Öcalan’s demands and requests. And politicians here, Demirtaş foremost among them, are speaking in Qandil’s tone. I wonder if this is a sham fight between İmralı and Qandil. It is the HDP’s task to eliminate such discrepancies”.

HDP Group Deputy Chairperson İdris Baluken demanded the immediate retraction of the AKP government’s ‘Internal Security Package’. Baluken also drew attention to racist attacks targeting the HDP in various provinces.

The Turkish Armed Forces carried out the Shah Euphrates Operation, reaching via Kobani the Suleyman Shah Mausoleum under ISIS siege to move the remains and evacuate the 38 maroon berets protecting the mausoleum. The remains were transferred to a new mausoleum formed in the Eshme village of Syria.

YPG made a press statement announcing that they had provided support to Turkish forces entering Kobani, and that they had formed a 5 kilometre security corridor. A Turkish security official speaking to Reuters stated that the operation had been carried out “via Kobani with the support of local Kurdish officials”.

HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş made a statement on the internal security package, also commenting on the solution process: “Following the most recent meeting held at İmralı Island, both sides declared to the press that a joint statement could be made. This joint statement would have been a consensus on which articles needed to be sensitively debated so that negotiations can begin in the coming period. The manipulative approach of the government and its supporters is the reason this call has failed to materialize.”

HDP Group Deputy Chairperson Pervin Buldan and Mersin Member of Parliament Ertuğrul Kürkçü made a statement on the attack AKP members of parliament carried out in the General Assembly on opposition members of parliament before the session on the “Internal Security Package” commenced. Buldan said, “History will record the silence of the female Parliament Deputy Chairperson in the face of the violence carried out against us, female members of parliament. This law is now stained in blood. The AKP is casting the solution and peace process into a very dangerous course”.

The İmralı Delegation made a statement, saying, “In the meeting held with the KCK, the main agenda featured steps that need to be taken within the scope of the solution process, the ‘Internal Security Package’ that has been sent to Parliament, and the recent developments in the Middle East with a focus on Kobani and Shingal”. It was also claimed in the statement that the KCK found it unacceptable that the negotiations process had still not begun, and that the AKP government, instead of taking steps that would lead to permanent peace in concrete negotiation headings, spent time focusing on public perception management via expectations that did not correspond to reality.

An explosion took place in a waste container at the police checkpoint 50 metres away from the Arin Mirxan Tent City on the road out of Suruç, 3 people, one of them a police officer, were injured. The People’s Defence Central Headquarters Command announced that they had no connection to the explosion in Suruç. The statement specifically drew attention to provocative efforts targeting the solution process in Suruç District.

A total of 10 million 328 thousand 623 signatures collected within the scope of the Freedom for Öcalan Campaign was announced to the public at a press conference held in front of the Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg.

A HDP Delegation travelled to Qandil.

DTK Co-Chairperson Hatip Dicle stated that there were continuing efforts to enable the announcement of an important message regarding the solution process at Newroz, adding that a democratic Constitution was necessary for the solution of the Kurdish Question.

HDP İmralı Delegation members Group Deputy Chairperson Pervin Buldan and Istanbul Member of Parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder held a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan. The meeting that was closed to the press was held at the Prime Minister’s Central Office.

Meeting with the press on the same day in Parliament, HDP Co-Chairperson Figen Yüksekdağ stated that the internal security package disrupted the solution process, adding that Hakan Fidan’s resignation would not have a decisive impact on the implementation and organization of the process. Yüksekdağ said, “The process is now at the stage where it passes onto negotiations. If negotiations do not commence, there can be no joint statement. We are ready. The government has failed to complete its preparation for negotiations. We expect the government to take this decision in 2 weeks so negotiations can commence. Certain legal steps must be taken in addition to the framework law”.

Yalçın Akdoğan stated that “a favorable point had been reached” in the Solution Process, saying, “Previous processes were disrupted because of very serious acts of sabotage. The Solution Process suffered serious turbulence in the Kobani incidents as well”. Akdoğan added that despite serious difficulties, a tradition and dialogue had emerged in the problem solving method, and that the system had developed immunity. Regarding Öcalan’s draft, Akdoğan said, “The HDP has its own view. We, of course, have our own view and approach. In other words, the draft alone has no significance. It is a view, it is an issue that is being debated. My impression is that we are close to an outcome. It needs to be supported with good will”. When asked about his view regarding Ahmet Türk’s statement, “If we do not pass the election threshold, then the State is liable”, Akdoğan responded, “Is it the State’s responsibility to secure that a political party passes the election threshold? That is a very reckless statement,” adding that the main axis of the Solution Process was important.

President Erdoğan stated that he did not approve of Hakan Fidan’s candidacy in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan resigned from his position in order to become a candidate for nomination in the parliamentary elections to be held on June 7. His resignation letter was accepted by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu.

President Erdoğan said, “If we want a solution process, then we must deliver 400 members of parliament so that a party in power with all its might can realize this”.

The İmralı Delegation, formed of HDP Deputy Group Chairpersons Pervin Buldan and İdris Baluken, Istanbul Member of Parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Democratic Society Congress (DTK) Co-Chairperson Hatip Dicle and Democratic Free Women’s Movement (DÖKH) member Ceylan Bağrıyanık, held a meeting with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.

HDP Deputy Co-Chairperson Meral Danış Beştaş, drawing attention to detention operations that have continued at full speed since 6 October, stated that the primary target was the signature campaign carried out for Abdullah Öcalan’s freedom.

30 year old Nezahat Celal, trying to pass into Turkey from the Derik district of Rojava, lost her life as a result of shots fired by Turkish Army soldiers.

YDG-H and YDGK announced that, in contrast to media reports, they had no connection to handmade explosives left in many public areas in Istanbul on January 18.

HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş met with ambassadorial representatives of 27 EU member countries. At an official lunch, issues such as Turkey’s EU membership process, democratization, elections, the solution process, and regional developments with a focus on Syria and Kobani were discussed.

In the investigation of Nihat Kazanhan’s murder in Cizre, Special Forces police officer H.V., who was revealed to be part of the team [squad] that came to Cizre on temporary duty, and who served at the Mardin Police Directorate Special Forces Bureau Directorate, was arrested by the court on duty.

Under ISIS attacks since 15 September 2014, the town of Kobani was liberated after 134 days.

Cizre Police Chief Ercan Demir was arrested within the scope of the investigation of public officials in the Hrant Dink murder case on charges of “voluntary manslaughter due to neglect of duty”. Demir was Trabzon Police Directorate Intelligence Branch Chief at the time of Hrant Dink’s murder.

In Cizre, in the Yafes Neighbourhood, where Nihat Kazanhan was massacred on January 14, this time 43-year-old Nazım Ölmez was massacred in an armed attack.

The HDP Delegation made a written statement regarding the meetings it held with AKP Government ministers on the solution process. The delegation stated that they had met with Yalçın Akdoğan yesterday, and Interior Minister Efkan Ala today, and that topics of the meetings included the stage arrived at in the solution process and what needed to be done, developments in the Kurdish region with Cizre of prior concern that put a strain on the process, seriously-ill prisoners, democratization steps that needed to be taken and Turkey’s Kobani policy.

Unidentified persons opened fire on the DBP Bingöl Provincial Headquarters. Eye witnesses reported that the attack had been carried out from within a vehicle.

A rocket launcher attack was carried out on a police station within the grounds of the district governor’s office in Cizre.

HDK Co-Spokespersons Sebahat Tuncel and Ertuğrul Kürkçü made a written statement on State terror carried out in Cizre. The statement drew attention to the fact that an attack had been carried out to coincide with the visit of DTK Co-Chairpersons and HDP members of parliament, saying, “The State seems to be exerting an extraordinary effort to trigger new incidents”. It was underlined that the number of deaths in Cizre since December 27 had reached 6, and that the perpetrators of the murders were yet to be determined.

A HDP Delegation held a 1,5 hour meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan at the Prime Minister’s Central Office.

HDP Deputy Group Chairpersons Pervin Buldan ve İdris Baluken presented a Legislative Proposal for the establishment of a “Historical Truths and Reconcilliation Commission”.

12-year-old Nihat Kazanhan died after receiving injuries to his head when police opened fire in Cizre.

DBP Co-Chairperson Emine Ayna, from the Freedom for Öcalan for Peace Platform, demanded an end to repression targeting activists carrying out the signature campaign, saying, “The number of signatures we have collected now stands at over 5 million. This figure displays the will for a solution. Any attack targeting this campaign targets the solution process”.

DTK Co-Chairperson Hatip Dicle, HDP Group Deputy Chairpersons Pervin Buldan and İdris Baluken and HDP Istanbul MP Sırrı Süreyya Önder held a meeting with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan at İmralı Island.

HDP Deputy Group Chairperson İdris Baluken, in a speech at the TBMM General Assembly, commented on the Paris massacre on its 2nd anniversary. Baluken drew attention to the fact that the government had taken no steps to shed light on the Paris massacre in the two years that have passed, saying, “If the AKP government were sincere regarding the solution process, then it should have unearthed all details of such a bloody plan aimed at terminating the solution process and revealed all the necessary information to the people of Turkey”.

14-year-old Ümit Kurt died following fire opened from armoured vehicles that entered the Cudi neighbourhood immediately after the ditches dug to prevent the police’s entrance to Cizre’s Nur and Cudi neighbourhoods had been filled.

A rocket-launcher attack was carried out on an armoured police vehicle parked in front of the Dicle Police Station at the Silopi exit of Cizre district.

On 28 December 2014, HDP Member of Parliament Faysal Sarıyıldız presented a parliamentary question to Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek regarding the rejection by the Parliamentary Printing House of a request to print New Year’s cards in Kurdish.

Council of Europe (CoE) Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland, on an official two-day visit to Ankara, met with HDP executives led by Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş. Jagland’s spokesperson Daniel Holtgen, in a statement to ANF, announced that the ‘solution process’ was discussed at the meeting, and that the government’s actions on the issue were also addressed.

Batman Co-Mayor Gülistan Akel, municipal assembly members Hülya Baltaş and Hamide Çelik, and a group of municipal workers were detained for taking part in the “Freedom for Öcalan” campaign. Kızıltepe Co-Mayors İsmail Ası and Leyla Salman, detained on the same grounds, were released the same day.

The Supreme Court of Appeals ratified the sentences of 16 Kurdish politicians, 4 of which were held under arrest, who were given prison sentences in the lawsuit filed against them following the operation titled “KCK City Assembly” carried out in Cizre in 2010.

The HPG announced its annual statement for 2014. The statement declared that HPG and YJA-STAR forces had abided by the ceasefire, providing the following details: 513 reconnaissance flights by the Turkish army, 81 ground offensives by the Turkish army, 153 aerial mobility incidents, 15 Kobra (infantry mobility vehicle) attacks, 75 tank and artillery attacks, 60 clashes, 31 actions carried out by guerrillas, 9 inconclusive clashes and actions, 35 soldier casualties, 9 injured soldiers, 29 vehicles hit, 1 detention-arrest carried out by guerrillas, 12 guerrillas lost their lives.

Musa Azma and Zeki Alar, who were critically wounded in an armed assault carried out by the police on a group of young people carrying out an action in Silopi in protest of the recent incidents in Cizre, have both passed away. They were being treated in Malatya İnönü University Hospital and Dicle University Faculty of Medicine consecutively.

The broadened HDP delegation that had set out for İmralı Island to hold a meeting with Öcalan was forced to return because of adverse weather conditions.

Lütfü Taş, a member of the Peace Group who came to Turkey from Qandil in 2009 following Abdullah Öcalan’s call, and who was arrested in 2010, suffered a fatal heart attack at the Diyarbakır/Amed D-Type Prison.

Following clashes between HÜDA PAR and PKK in the Cizre district of Şırnak on 27 December which resulted in the deaths of 3 people and 5 injuries, the District Police Chief was relieved of duty.

YDG-H and YDGK made a statement, saying, “It was the State itself that we faced in Cizre. An operation jointly launched by Hizbul-Kontr, DAESH and JİTEM faced the resistance of the youth movement. This operation, sought to be carried out in a highly coordinated and planned manner, was entirely coordinated by the hand of the State. Minister of Special Warfare Yalçın Akdoğan’s provocative statements such as, ‘the youth are cocking their snoot at Qandil’ reveals how strained the colonialist Turkish State is in the face of the serhildans [rebellions, uprisings] of the youth. It is well known that this and similar statements are the language of desperation, and a lack of solution”.

AKP Spokesperson Beşir Atalay, speaking following a MKYK (Central Executive Board) meeting, said, “The framework law, which we could accept as the constitution of the solution process, was ratified in Parliament in July. It passed with the support of 80% of Parliament. Now they ask, ‘What is on the road map, what is being discussed?’. Turkey is a major State, and it is a State of law. If a law has been passed by Parliament, and it received 80% support there, then that must be taken as the basis, and that is what the government is taking as its basis”.

HDP Co-Chairperson Figen Yüksekdağ criticized AKP Spokesperson Beşir Atalay declaring that the government’s road map was a “framework law” in his statements on the ‘solution process’. Yüksekdağ said, “There is a mistake regarding content. The solution process and our work for it has reached a much more advanced stage. We are now speaking of a road map. There is a negotiatios draft prepared by Mr. Öcalan. Meetings are being held in İmralı Island on the basis of this draft. A process involving the addressees, Qandil, the State and our party is being carried out”.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu made a statement on clashes that took place in Cizre, saying, “I call on everyone for calm regarding the incidents in Cizre. Our security forces have prevented the violence. Turkey has taken precautions against all types of provocateurs. Whenever the solution process has progressed on track, elements that try to use it have appeared. These provocations will have no impact on the Solution Process. This is why the internal security reform package is important. We will not allow persons wearing masks to set the place on fire”. Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan, in a statement on the PKK-HÜDA PAR clash that took place in Cizre, declared that provocations targeted the Solution Process. Akdoğan said, “Just when we were saying everything is on track, Qandil made a statement, saying, ‘If anyone covers their faces during an action and throws Molotov cocktails, they are not on our side, they are agents’. A day later, incidents took place in Cizre. Some persons covered their faces and went and threw Molotov cocktails, they tried to burn down people’s homes. They were clearly cocking their snoot at Qandil, saying ‘I don’t recognize you’. So what I mean is, whenever we get close to an outcome, provocateurs enter the frame and immediately want to disrupt the process”.

The funerals of 4 YPG members, killed in clashes in Syria’s Kobani and Iraq’s Shingal regions, were brought from Habur to Cizre. First a fight, then an armed clash took place between YDG-H members keeping guard at the condolence tent set up in the Nur Neighbourhood and persons affiliated with HÜDA PAR. The fight that begun after midnight grew into a clash involving long-barrelled firearms around 3 am. Clashes continued until the morning, homes belonging to persons affiliated with HÜDA PAR were attacked with firearms and many homes were arsoned. Abdullah Deniz (65), a person affiliated with HÜDA PAR, was injured in the clashes, and later lost his life. Towards the morning, Yasin Özer (19), a person affiliated with YDG-H and in the afternoon Barış Dalmış (15) were killed.

DTK Co-Chairperson Hatip Dicle, after holding meetings with DBP and HÜDA PAR executives regarding the incidents in Cizre in which 3 people lost their lives, said, “These incidents are the result of a provocation of deep forces that cannot digest developments related to the solution process and benefit from marginalizing society”.

In a meeting it held in Qandil from 21 to 24 November, Komalên Ciwan (Youth Assembly), which includes the PKK’s youth structure, the Patriotic Democratic Youth Movement that made headlines with street actions in recent years, took a decision to implement a change in its forms of action. In a statement, it was announced that a decision had been taken to reject forms of action such as the covering of faces in mass actions, carrying out provocations from within the crowd, causing damage to the life and property of the public, the burning of public buses, and ordering the closing of shops for every mass action.

Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Hatip Dicle and Leyla Zana held an 11-hour meeting with KCK executives in Qandil on the most recent state of progress in the Solution Process. It was stated that because of the increased frequency of meetings held at İmralı, from now on the HDP delegation would make statements only when it deemed necessary after visits to İmralı and Qandil, and that they could make joint statements with the government in line with the article on ‘Informing the public’ in the law passed regarding the Solution Process.

CHP Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu stated that the government did not share with them information related to the process carried out regarding a solution for the Kurdish question, and that they received detailed information from statements made by Qandil. Kılıçdaroğlu said, “A negotiations process is continuing. It is said that İmralı is the main actor. A bargain is being made. Then they take the results they have reached to Qandil. They make a statement. At the point we have arrived at, a process of which members of parliament and the opposition are informed of nothing is being carried out. Only the HDP, İmralı and a few persons in the cabinet know. We receive the most detailed information from Qandil. We see a framework that is insincere, displaying no mutual trust”. Main opposition party CHP Leader Kılıçdaroğlu then said, “It is also our desire that blood does not flow, this problem must be solved. It must be solved by social consensus. It must be solved in Parliament. We pointed to Parliament as the address to solve this, but none of this was done”.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan posted a tweet regarding statements by KCK executives which stated, “Untruthful, untimely, uncalled-for, provocative statements made by Qandil will not benefit the process. An anachronic state… They either get stuck in the past, or they are driven towards an inconsequential future or dream…”.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu stated that there were positive developments regarding the solution process for the Kurdish question: “We made two important inferences after the 6-7 October incidents. The solution process is a new process of integration, crowned with democracy, in order to revive natural unity and integrity. The 6-7 October incidents led to a temporary standstill. Under no condition can we compromise public order. If you do, the solution process is rendered inoperative. We will make sure democracy strikes deep roots. No restriction whatsoever will be imposed on anyone. We will not allow this nation to become enemies of each other. There are positive developments. God willing, we will progress with this process with determination.”

KCK Executive Council member Murat Karayılan, in an interview to the Rojnews Agency based in Iraq, stated that if the solution process concluded successfully, Öcalan would attend the 12th Congress of the PKK planned to be held in April 2015.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, commenting on debates on autonomy, stated that the Solution Process was being carried out on the principle of the ‘unitary State’. Davutoğlu said, “However, in relation to the increased prevalence of local administrations and matters related to local administrations, it is readily obvious how our government prioritizes local administrations and the steps it has taken in this context, exemplified first and foremost by the Metropolitan Law. It is not right to discuss such issues along a false axis in public”.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan held a meeting yesterday morning with İmralı delegation members HDP Group Deputy Chairperson Pervin Buldan and Istanbul Member of Parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder. Akdoğan took to social media site Twitter to provide information about the meeting, saying, “The process is progressing with a strong political will and determination. Meetings have accelerated on the basis of trust and good will to secure the ultimate outcome,” signalling the onset of a new period. Buldan and Önder also made a statement to the press, stating that they were trying to form their own precedents in the course of the solution process, saying, “We suffered a rupture that began with the Kobani resistance, but we would like to declare that we have left behind an important crisis process. We would like to state that after this stage, within the scope of the solution process, we have entered into a new process which mainly focuses on İmralı”. Önder stated that certain consensuses had been reached to keep channeles of dialogue open, adding, “That does not mean that all issues have been resolved. We will assess the matter with our authorized committees and then travel on to İmralı. We will also discuss the issue with KCK executives. After that, these meetings will progress in a more in-depth, fruitful and outcome-oriented manner”.

KCK Co-Chairperson Cemil Bayık commented on claims in the media that the PKK would lay down its arms by 15 March, saying, “We will on no account lay down arms before we discuss the negotiations draft, finalize it according to dates we have determined, and reach an agreement on this subject. No conditions for us to lay down our arms have been met. Which problem has been solved for us to consider laying down our arms? Neither arms can be laid down, nor can the guerrilla abandon its positions before the democratic political solution of the Kurdish question is realized”.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan stated that “significant developments could take place” in the solution process for the Kurdish question before the 2015 general election. Akdoğan said, “The main issue here is reaching a solution. Many dimensions of the issue have been dealt with. Thus, compared to the past, we are a step closer to an outcome. We are now in the home stretch”.

Deputy Prime Minister visited Bülent Arınç HÜDA PAR within the scope of his visits of political parties representing the Kurdish movement. Arınç said, “In this process, we have to be together with everyone who was something to say, wants to voice an opinion, has an idea and wants to communicate it. The HDP is not the only representative in the solution process, or of the problem of the Kurds, or the Kurdish people. The whole world should know this. They may say so themselves, but that is not how it is”.

When polemical arguments taking place via the press began to hamper issues agreed upon between the parties, the government and the HDP took the decicison to launch a new period in the solution process from the beginning of this week. The agreement is described as a “more controlled period of communication to prevent polemical arguments taking place via the press”. It was also agreed upon to not share with the press any steps to be taken regarding the process before they had been clarified.

Speaking at the 1st Ordinary General Assembly of the Democratic Society Congress, Co-Chairperson Hatip Dicle spoke about Öcalan’s draft for negotiations, and the recent meeting they held, conveying that Öcalan had said, “All phases of the Peace and Negotiations Draft must be completed in a 4-5 month process, until April 15, otherwise I am at the end of my patience”.

The claim that the negotiations draft prepared by Öcalan included a heading on “autonomy” led to a new argument between the government and the HDP. According to a report by Al Jazeera, the draft does not include ‘autonomy’, but a heading titled ‘strengthening of local administrations’. The reason for the argument is thus how the two parties interpret this heading.

Speaking at the TBMM General Assembly, HDP Member of Parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder once again criticized the internal security draft law, saying, “You cannot achieve peace by preparing for war. This is worse even than martial law legislation, it is a law fit for a coup”.

The HDP Central Executive Board condemned in a written declaration Prime Minister Davutoğlu’s statement targeting Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş, in which he said, “Demirtaş will be responsible of the blood that will flow”. The HDP Delegation that travelled to Qandil, announced that KCK executives had unanimously accepted the “Draft for Peace and Democratic Negotiation Process”. The delegation made a statement, saying, “KCK executives stated that they had assessed the Draft for Peace and Democratic Negotiation Process” prepared by Mr. Öcalan in detailed meetings held by all their structures and units, and that they had reached a number of historical conclusions in these meetings”.

At the 11. Kurdish Conference held at the European Parliament, ISIS and the solution process were discussed. A call was made on the government of Turkey for the release of PKK Leader Öcalan, and on the EU to remove the PKK from the list of terrorist organizations.

The HDP Delegation formed of İdris Baluken, Pervin Buldan, Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Hatip Dicle held a meeting with Yalçın Akdoğan. Önder announced that they would hold further meetings with the government on Öcalan’s draft. However, Yalçın Akdoğan made a statement via his Twitter account to refute claims that the draft had been discussed, saying, “At the meeting with HDP members, a general assessment of the process was made; and issues such as autonomy, a general amnesty or İmralı’s draft were certainly not discussed”.

HDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş commented on the draft law that proposed amendments to the Law on Police Duties and Powers and a number of other laws and legislative decrees, saying, “This is a law that they are trying to bring into force on the pretext of the Kobani incidents. It carries the potential to gravely undermine the negotiations process. If the draft becomes law, then the Prime Minister will order “shoot”, the police will shoot a person in the head, and then say, ‘his face was covered, he was carrying a Molotov cocktail, or had a stone in his hand,’ and our children will be murdered in the street in their numbers. We will oppose it both in Parliament, and raise cain to try to prevent it in rallies and marches in the streets”.

Davutoğlu stated that a new environment had emerged in the solution process, and that they wanted to reach an outcome by the general election in June 2015.

In a document described as the “Draft for Peace and Democratic Negotiation Process” PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan proposed four main headings for the solution of the Kurdish question. The first main heading, titled Method, explained how democratic politics would be applied to the process. The second main heading, titled History and Philosophy, developed a viewpoint extending from the past into the present and future regarding the solution of the problem. The heading titled Main Agenda Articles included around forty main questions, assessments and proposals. Sırrı Süreyya Önder, who announced the details of the draft, did not provide any information regarding the contents of the fourth heading titled Action Plan.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan made a statement on the progress of the solution process, saying, “At the moment, we are on track, but what will determine the speed of the process? Steps that will be taken, sincerity and honesty will. In such processes, one has to be sincere; one has to be honest, committed and courageous”. Akdoğan added that there were red lines in the Solution Process, saying, “We will never compromise public security and order. We will never take a step back from Turkey’s unity and integrity, we won’t compromise. We will not allow an operation to be carried out on Turkey. That is the main line”.

CHP Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, speaking at a CHP Regional Meeting in Diyarbakır/Amed, said that the Kurdish question was one of the main issues Turkey faced. The CHP leader added that they had stated before that the problem could not be solved with security measures. Kılıçdaroğlu said, “We are going to solve the problem with democracy and freedom. I am asking you to give me power for 4 years. I promise you democracy, freedom, factories and food”.

AKP Deputy Chairperson Beşir Atalay stated that the road map of the solution process would sooner or later inevitably involve disarmament, and the legal regulation by the State of the return home of guerrillas. “Then comes a period without arms and violence, and everyone’s involvement in politics. That is the ultimate target.”

HDP Group Deputy Chairperson Pervin Buldan stated that the visit to İmralı Prison would from now on be carried out by a delegation of five persons, and a total of 25-30 persons would work on the process including the observation committee, an expanded negotiations delegation and a secretariat.

Selahattin Demirtaş stated that the CHP, too, should be included in the process.

Making a statement to the Kurdish language daily Azadiya Welat, KCK Executive Council member and People’s Defense Central (HSM) Headquarters Commander Murat Karayılan, commented on Abdullah Öcalan’s 2013 Declaration, saying, “It could be said that it was announced upon being accepted by both parties”. Karayılan pointed out that this was followed by the guerrilla withdrawing to positions outside the border following the declaration of ceasefire, and that in the second phase the State had to take certain steps in the context of legal measures, and that this would be followed by the third phase, normalization. Karayılan indicated the State’s failure to fulfill the requirements of the second phase was the reason the withdrawal had been halted, revealing the AKP’s intention with the following words: “They only did a single thing. They passed a law. The AKP, as a whole, approaches the issue with the election in mind. The Presidential elections were coming. It wasn’t clear whether he would win. They wanted the truce process to continue. However, the Kurdish side demanded that a step was taken. So they passed a law. They developed no legal measures other than the framework law. They did not fulfill requirements in practice either. They did not comply with ceasefire conditions either.”

Karayılan underlined that the government’s aim was to “dissolve the process by extending it over a period of time,” listing the conditions the State had to fulfill in the ceasefire process as follows: “First, no new military stations must be built. Second, the construction of dams that flood the lands of Kurdistan, and that aim in essence to restrict the guerrilla’s room for maneuver must be stopped. And again, the construction of military roads must be given up”.

Karayılan also responded to Arınç’s statement, ‘We are not obliged to carry out a solution process’ saying: “As if we are desperate for it. That is not the case. The hand of Kurdish politics is stronger than it ever has been. Bülent Arınç and all state officials should now that the PKK has many options. Especially in this period when the Kurdish question has entered the agenda in all its aspects and has gained public support, all barriers of the past have been demolished. The PKK needs no one in this period. However, there can be no doubt that the Kurdish people and the people of Turkey feel the need for peace, fraternity, friendship and coexistence. Yet everyone should know that no one needs the AKP”.

Prime Minister Davutoğlu commented on KCK Co-Chairperson Cemil Bayık’s recently voiced demand for an inclusion of a foreign State in the Solution Process, saying: “There will be no foreign eye, or in other words, a third eye. The solution process is a natural outcome of the democratization process. We already have the wise persons committee. There can be no external eye. We already tried that at Oslo. Oslo was a mediated process and we saw how that concluded. It did not work.”

Meetings suspended because of the 6-7 October Incidents restarted with a meeting held between a HDP delegation formed of Pervin Buldan, Sırrı Süreyya Önder and İdris Baluken and Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan. At the meeting, the matter of the formation of an Observation Committee that would act as a third eye [party] in the process was also discussed.

HDP Group Deputy Chairperson Pervin Buldan stated that the solution process meetings, suspended by the government because of the 6-12 October Kobani protests, would restart.

AKP Deputy Chairperson Mehmet Ali Şahin stated that their expectation was the PKK’s disarmament and withdrawal from Turkey.

HDP Honorary President and Mersin Member of Parliament Ertuğrul Kürkçü stated that the process had suffered congestion because of the government’s failure to take tangible steps, and that the return to a security policy on the pretext of the Kobani protests had increased oppression, adding, “We are nevertheless making an effort to revive the process”.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan responded to questions as to whether the Solution Process continued. Akdoğan stated that the Solution Process was experiencing turbulence in the aftermath of the 6-12 October Kobani protests, saying, “I assume meetings between the State and İmralı are continuing”.

Selahattin Demirtaş became the target of a verbal attack on a Diyarbakır/Amed-Ankara flight, carried out by a person who was later revealed to be a member of HÜDA PAR. HÜDA PAR is stated [claimed] to be an extension of the State-supported Hizbullah, infamous for murders carried out in the 1990s. A law change that reduced periods of detention and came into force on 31 December 2010 had led to the release of imprisoned Hizbullah administrators, who later disappeared.

A person entering the HDP Ankara Provincial Headquarters seriously injured Party Caucus member Ahmet Karataş. Ahmet Davutoğlu announced that the attacker had been captured a short while after the incident.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, when reminded of HDP Group Deputy Chairperson Pervin Buldan’s statement that they would issue a call to the government to get back on track the solution process that had been suspended by the government because of public order issues and to reopen channels of dialogue, said, “Our negotiations will continue if the HDP continues to act within the framework of the laws. We will address them only if they remain outside incidents involving violence, terror, unpermitted actions, and actions that lead to the loss of life and property, and take a stance against such actions”.

In a press conference they held at the TBMM, HDP members of parliament Pervin Buldan, İdris Baluken and Sırrı Süreyya Önder responded to Davutoğlu. Önder said, “We have done everything in our share for the peace process, and we declare to the whole world that we are prepared to continue doing so. We rejected this manner of speech, and all such approaches. It is no one’s right, and it oversteps the limit to comment on what any of our institutions involved in politics in this field resemble, or to determine what they should look like”.

Van Independent Member of Parliament Aysel Tuğluk, in an article she published on an internet site, stated that the AKP was no longer a partner in the solution process.

Government Spokesperson Bülent Arınç, making a statement following a Cabinet meeting, said, “From our point of view, the solution process continues. They should not expect us to remain silent regarding recent incidents of violence because this process is continuing. Those who have close ties with İmralı and Qandil are turning a blind eye to the nation’s pain. In contrast, they are accusing the government with failing to take precautions. As if these incidents have not taken place in Turkey, he says there will be a secretariat, and what not. At a time when public sensitivity is so intense, when the blood of our soldiers and our police is still on the ground, we will not hold a person in esteem who says there should be a secretariat. We are taking steps in accordance with the decisions we have taken and by the authority vested in us by Parliament. (…) We do not take the dates given to us by the organization into consideration. We do not like to issue threats. When this business is over, we shall say so, and end it. We are not obliged to carry out the solution process. We attach great importance to it for the sake of Turkey’s future. We want to conclude this business. It will be concluded in Parliament. But if it is made out to appear as if it is only us who wants the solution process, or that we are obliged to carry it out, and everyone else will harm it at will, then no, that’s not how it is going to be. If the solution process fails, then everyone will bear the blame, including the person on the island. We are acting in a very subtle and sensitive way. Everyone has to act as sensitive as us. We won’t be the party to end this. These meetings are carried out by the mediation of MİT. We are not about to issue information to the public every day, on the hour. We should not be facing questions about information exploited by TVs and radios affiliated with the organization. We are determined, but it is also our right to expect others to share this determination”.

In the Yüksekova district of Hakkâri, three soldiers were killed by masked persons in the market place. The PKK announced that it had not issued an order for attack. A broadcast ban was imposed on the incident.

Gendarmerie units of the Turkish Armed Forces killed three PKK members in a moving vehicle in the Kağızman district of Kars.

Having held a meeting with the HDP delegation, Abdullah Öcalan was expected to make a critical statement. After the meeting, the delegation conveyed Abdullah Öcalan’s words, “The stage we have arrived at in the solution process has suffered a rupture. The most important reason of this rupture is the government’s attempt to set the form of relationship it has tried to develop with me within a mechanics of instrumentalization. It has now been realized in its full reality that this is not an approach suitable to the gravity of the issue we are trying to solve. At this point, all parties to the solution have adequately comprehended the narrowness of this approach, and that it won’t serve a solution. I would like to express that, as of October 15, we have entered a new phase regarding the process that closely concerns the democratic future of Turkey, and permanent peace in our region, and that my hope for a successful practice in the process has increased in this sense”.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu held a meeting with the Wise Persons Delegation. At the meeting, after which only Davutoğlu’s speech was shared with the public, the Prime Minister stated that “the solution process had 3 characteristics”, naming them as: “It is national, it is local domestic, it is unique”.

In a speech he made in Gümüşhane, President Erdoğan also commented on the 4 persons executed in Genç, saying, “The murderers of the security forces were immediately tracked down and captured dead”.

Cemil Bayık held the government responsible of incidents in Kobani and Turkey, adding that the resolution that the Parliament had passed was a declaration of war, and that therefore they had sent back all the units they had withdrawn from Turkey.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu made a statement regarding the 4 persons killed in Genç: “Terrorists, in a position of being the perpetrators of the attack, were punished within one-or-two hours”. Davutoğlu’s words were criticized as a sign of the government adopting extrajudicial killing as a method of punishment.

As the Kobani protests continued, Bingöl Police Deputy Chief Atıf Şahin and superintendent Hüseyin Hatipoğlu lost their lives in an attack that took place in Bingöl. A broadcast ban was imposed on the incident. A short while after the attack, 4 people, claimed to be the perpetrators of the incident, were murdered by the police in a vehicle stopped in the Genç district of Bingöl. However, it emerged that the bullets that killed the police officers did not belong to the firearms of discovered in the possession of the 4 murdered persons. The parliamentary inquiry proposed by the HDP was rejected in parliament with countervotes from AKP MPs.

As ISIS’s siege of Kobani entered its first month, a new dynamic was triggered in Turkey. In response to the KCK and HDP’s “call for permanent action”, people took to the streets. Following incidents that led to the deaths of 49 people in around 40 cities, curfews were imposed in many cities. Many groups clashed with each other (followers of HDP-Free Cause Party (HÜDA PAR) in the east, and followers of HDP and nationalist groups in the west). In clashes, during which many people were also injured, many workplaces, public buildings, party headquarters and municipal buildings in city centres were arsoned. The killing of two police officers in an attack on the Bingöl Police Department, and an attack carried out on a military post in Tunceli, led to a questioning of the future of the Solution Process, which is about to enter its second year. The protests were ended by a call from Öcalan. Öcalan reminded that the solution process and Kobani were parts of an inseparable whole.

Öcalan granted the government time until 15 October 2014 for it to take new steps in the solution process.

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç announced that a Solution Process Council would be formed for the solution process to succeed.

At least 60 thousand civilians entered Suruç, following the Kobani siege of ISIS. On the same day, as a result of “diplomatic negotiations” the AKP carried out with ISIS, 49 hostages including Turkey’s Mosul Consul were handed over. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş travelled to Suruç, where he announced that the number of people entering Turkey from Kobani had reached 60 thousand. Kurtulmuş said, “We would like to express once again that ISIS is not a cause but an effect. If you do not allow masses in Syria and Iraq that form the great majority of the people to be included in political participation processes, if you pave the way to all manners of instability in Syria and Iraq, and if you do not allow means for people to express themselves, then you may defeat ISIS today, but God forbid, tomorrow you will face something else”.

ISIS laid siege on Kobani, a town across the border from the Suruç district of Urfa.

The KCK Education and Language Committee made a statement, saying, “A people that loses its language, also loses its culture, history and identity. All families in Kurdistan must support the boycott on schools”.

Mahir Çetin was beaten to death in Antalya for speaking Kurdish in public.

The Peace Mothers issued a call, saying, “Do not send your children to Turkish schools”.

Military units carried out an operation on a school carrying out education in Kurdish in the Lice district of Diyarbakır/Amed, a clash ensued with the crowd [that had gathered]. In Cizre, all preparations were completed for a school to begin carrying out education in Kurdish.

The KCK Executive Council Directorate issued a statement assessing police operations on the newly opened schools that carried out education in Kurdish, saying, “The AKP does not miss an opportunity to display its intolerance towards the values of the Kurdish people”.

The HDP delegation travelled to İmralı Island to hold a meeting with Abdullah Öcalan.

The 7th Ordinary Congress of the Democratic Society Congress continued. Calls for National Unity, and freedom for the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan were emphasized. Hatip Dicle and Selma Irmak became the new DTK co-chairpersons. DTK Co-Chairperson Selma Irmak said, “We have continued our freedom march for 30 years, and we no doubt owe this freedom march to Esteemed Mr. Öcalan and our People”.

KCK made a statement, saying, “Opening private schools in Kurdistan constitutes no progress. Our people should collectively boycott Turkish schools”.

The Kurdish public is preparing for a 1-week school boycott demanding the right for education in native language.

The martyrs’ cemetery built for guerrillas in the Mawan town of Siirt was demolished by the soldiers. The people held a vigil at the martyrs’ cemetery through the night.

Chief of General Staff Necdet Özel made a statement, saying, “The government did not ask us our opinion regarding the road map, we are finding out about it from the press. We wish that our view had been sought. The government said the problem would be solved without arms, we do not want mothers to cry. If the red lines of the solution process are transgressed we will give the necessary answer”.

Beşir Atalay was not named in newly appointed Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s cabinet, while Yalçın Akdoğan, claimed to be one of the first advocates of the “Sri Lanka model”, became Deputy Prime Minister.

BDP Member of Parliament İdris Baluken announced that the solution process would enter the “negotiations” phase in the coming days, and that they wanted the agreed outcomes reached in the negotiations to also become a written agreement.

Ahmet Davutoğlu became AKP Chairperson and Prime Minister. Tayyip Erdoğan claimed that he would be closely involved in the solution process during his term as President as well.

Responding to Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay’s statement, “It is my desire to hold direct meetings with Qandil,” KCK Co-Chairperson Cemil Bayık said, “We are always open to such meetings. It could be done via the press, or via delegations, or international institutions”.

MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan travelled to İmralı Island where he held a meeting with Abdullah Öcalan.

Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay stated that it was their desire to now broaden meetings to include Europe and Qandil.

A military operation was carried out in the Lice district of Diyarbakır/Amed on a statue of Mahsum Korkmaz, and soldiers demolished the statue. A person named Mehdin Taşkın was murdered during the operation.

Öcalan, in a meeting with his lawyer, declared that he was troubled by the failure to begin negotiations in the solution process, and that he had reached the end of his patience.

No detainees remained in the scope of the Main KCK Trial held in Diyarbakır/Amed following the release of two detained defendants.

The TBMM General Assembly accepted and passed into law the “Draft Law on the Termination of Terror and Strengthening of Social Integration”, also known as the “Framework Law”.

HDP Co-Chairperson Figen Yüksekdağ stated that the release of all political prisoners including Öcalan, the abolishment of the Anti-Terror Law, and the urgent facilitation of education in native language were necessary for the establishment of peace.

Hatip Dicle was released. Dicle had been elected Diyarbakır/Amed Member of Parliament as a candidate of the Labour, Democracy and Freedom Bloc in the 12 June 2011 general election, however his mandate was rescinded by the Supreme Electoral Council, handing over the mandate to AKP candidate Oya Eronat, who had received a significantly lower number of votes. Hatip Dicle had previously been detained on 2 March 1994 after his immunity as DEP Member of Parliament was removed, and after remaining imprisoned for ten years, had been released in 2004 along with Leyla Zana, Orhan Doğan and Selim Sadak. Once again arrested on 24 December 2009 within the scope of KCK operations, Dicle had won the parliamentary election in prison.

Abdullah Öcalan’s lawyers filed an application at the prosecutor’s office to hold a meeting with their client.

Clashes that ensued following protests against the construction of a military station in the Lice district of Diyarbakır/Amed continued for 4 days. TheBingöl road motorway was sealed off.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan, addressing the BDP, said, “You will go and bring back the young people who have taken to the mountains, if you do not do that, we will launch our B and C plans”. The HPG General Headquarters Command issued a written statement responding to Tayyip Erdoğan’s words, ‘The PKK is abducting children,’ saying, “Everyone who joins the ranks of the PKK and the Guerrillas volunteer to do so, we cannot keep anyone by force who does not volunteer, and the age limit to join our ranks is set. As the HPG, we abide by the agreements we have made, the Turkish State is trying to prevent participation in the guerrilla movement. It is impossible for us to enter into war persons who are under the age limit, all our patriotic families must be sensitive against psychological warfare. This is a smear campaign, the Special Warfare Bureau is carrying out a new campaign of psychological warfare, we urge our people to be vigilant”.

Clashes took place between police and youth protesting kalekol constructions in the Cizre district of Şırnak, and Nusaybin district of Mardin.

Construction of 4 new towers began at the Gölyazı Battalion in Roboski.

As secrecy order was brought for the lawsuit launched regarding the trailer trucks intercepted at the Rojava border and reportedly belonging to MİT and carrying weapons to gangs, a broadcast ban was also imposed on the subject.

13 of the 14 defendants arrested in 2011 in the Dicle district of Diyarbakır/Amed on charges of “aiding and abetting an illegal organization” within the scope of the KCK investigation were released.

Ultra-nationalists attacked Kurdish students at Kayseri Erciyes University, injuring 2 students.

The Human Rights Association announced that there were 641 seriously-ill convicts and detainees in prisons.

HPG made a statement announcing that they had carried out an arson attack on vehicles at the site of the Ilısu Dam, and that they had fired warning shots on a military station in Şemdinli.

The BDP Istanbul provincial organization sent 37 trailer trucks full of aid it had collected to Rojava.

10 people were released in the KCK Batman trial.

The vigil held in Yüksekova in protest of military station constructions entered its 28th day.

HPG made a statement announcing that a clash took place between guerrillas and soldiers in Dersim.

An HDP Delegation travelled to South Kurdistan to hold a meeting with KCK officials.

HPG made a statement announcing that 2 soldiers had died and 1 soldier had been injured in clash that took place in Diyarbakır/Amed between guerrillas and the army.

7 journalist under arrest within the scope of the Free Press trial were released.

In a written statement made on the occasion of Kurdish Language Celebration Day, the KCK Language Council Co-Directorate said, “Our Kurdish People must build education in its own mother tongue”.

Reacting against the construction of a new military station in the Silvan district of Diyarbakır/Amed, the people demolished the station.

Sending a letter to the Democratic Islam Congress held in Diyarbakır/Amed, Abdullah Öcalan stated that a pluralist, equal and democratic Islam was a necessity, that an interpretation of Islam on the side of the government and the State contradicted the essence of Islam, that Islam represented universality in a manner befitting the last religion, and that a just democracy had to be the main reference point in keeping with the essence of Islam, adding, “Our movement is a contemporary synthesis of Saladini and Husayni movements”.

In a written statement, the KCK Executive Council Co-Directorate condemned gang attacks carried out on Êzidis in South Kurdistan.

An ISIS ring-member arrested by YPG public security forces made confessions stating that Al Qaida had a military recruitment bureau in the Reyhanlı district of Hatay, and that ring-members hosted there for a few days were then sent to Rojava.

Local newspapers reported that as the Peace Process and the withdrawal of guerrillas continued, the Turkish State had built 341 new military stations and 900 km.s of military roads, and that 2 thousand new village guards had been trained.

Abdullah Öcalan’s lawyers’ petition, presented to hold a meeting with their client, was rejected by the Prosecutor’s Office.

PKK Executive Council Member Duran Kalkan criticized the AKP government that had taken no concrete steps whatsoever despite a year having passed since the beginning of the solution process. Kalkan said, “A lack of solution to this problem is a threat to everyone. The AKP is exploiting the continuation of this contradictory situation of clashes. The AKP uses its own press to make it appear as if it has done things it hasn’t. Everyone is aware of everything that was promised to be done after the elections, however, 40 days have passed since the elections, nothing has been done, and their approach displays a complete lack of seriousness. The legal regulation passed for MİT is aimed at attacks on PKK personnel. The conditions to provide truce are absent. We saw what happened on May 1, and how the AKP’s police attacked the people. The recent process has shown nothing but efforts to consolidate the AKP’s position in power. In the new year, there has been no ceasefire, but actual circumstances. If no steps are taken, if there is no response to Leader Apo’s projects, and if the oppression of the people continues, then both the guerrillas and the people will intervene in the process”.

The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey passed 1,5 million.

European PKK trial lawyers held a press conference in the Netherlands for the lifting of the ban on the PKK. At the conference, the lawyers stated that it was necessary for the EU to lift the ban on the PKK for a solution to be possible.

Lice Co-Mayor Rêzan Zoroğlu was sentenced to 4,5 year imprisonment on grounds of ‘membership of a terror organization’.

In Lice, the public ended its 12-day vigil action after it was promised that military/police station constructions would end.

Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ said, “We are not working on, nor do we have any plan to allow home confinement for Abdullah Öcalan”.

All BDP members of parliament other than Selahattin Demirtaş and Sırrı Sakık transferred to the HDP. This was followed by the Peace and Democracy Party [BDP] changing its name to ‘Democratic Regions Party’ [DBP], withdrawing from parliament, and reorienting its activities to Kurdistan. The Kurdish movement, and socialists of Turkey entered the 30 March local elections with candidates supported by the BDP in the east, and by the HDP in the west. The Peoples’ Democratic Party [HDP] had been spearheaded by the Peoples’ Democratic Congress, realized on 15-16 October 2011 in Ankara jointly by the Kurdish movement, and socialists of Turkey. A year after the HDK’s foundation, on 15 October 2012, the HDP had announced its foundation, and BDP members of parliament had gradually transferred to the HDP.

The Law on Amendments to the State Intelligence Services and National Intelligence Organization [MİT] Law, alleged to have been introduced to protect MİT officials assigned in the solution process, was published in the Official Gazette. The new law included the clause, “MİT members, in carrying out their duties, may communicate and may order meetings with detainees and convicts in penal institutions on condition that they provide advance notice, and may as part of the requirements of their duty, contact all structures threatening national security, including terror organizations”.

18 March 2014

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that Turkey had ‘partly violated’ the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) following PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s complaint about his conditions of detention. The Court in Strasbourg, investigating the complaint regarding Article 3, held that there had been a violation as to the conditions of his detention up to 17 November 2009, the date until which Öcalan had been kept in social isolation. The court held that there had been no violation in the subsequent period. The ECtHR also held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 3 as regards his sentence to life imprisonment without any possibility of conditional release. The ECtHR saw no need for compensation, and held that Turkey was to pay Öcalan 25,000 Euros in respect of costs and expenses.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Türk, the television news channel, BDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş described the KCK statement that contrasted with Öcalan’s statement, as a ‘stern warning’ to the government, adding, “It was Mr. Öcalan who initiated the process, and any statement that will end it can also only come from him”.

Following the coming into force of the new law that abolished Specially Authorized Courts and restricted the maximum period of detention to 5 years, 9 lawyers and one writer detained within the scope of the KCK trial were released. This meant that no defendants in the ‘KCK lawyers’ trial remained in detention.

17 March 2014

Murat Karayılan, PKK executive in Qandil, stated that the government had not fulfilled its responsibilities in the solution process for the Kurdish question. According to Karayılan, the PKK will not disarm as long as Abdullah Öcalan remains in prison. Murat Karayılan argued that the process for the solution of the Kurdish question would end if the government did not take steps immediately after the election, saying: “The plan was for the declaration of ceasefire, and the withdrawal of the guerrilla forces -this has been done. We declared ceasefire and initiated the withdrawal. The process has not ended completely, but it is being implemented unilaterally. It is Chairperson Apo and we who are carrying out the process. The process has reached an impasse. It cannot continue unilaterally until the end. If steps are not taken within one or two weeks after the election, everyone should know that the process has ended.”

15 March 2014

Prior to Abdullah Öcalan’s upcoming announcement on March 21 for Newroz, a message in contrast to Öcalan’s most recent positive message was issued by Qandil. KCK announced that the government ‘was no longer the addressee of the democratization move’.

9 March 2014

İdris Baluken, Pervin Buldan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder held the last meeting with Abdullah Öcalan before the local elections to be held on 30 March. Öcalan told the BDP-HDP delegation that the last meeting he held with the State delegation had been positive, and that he retained his hope. Öcalan described the 30 March elections as a referendum for peace, and announced that he would issue a new letter on Newroz.

The Democratization Package was accepted at the General Assembly of Parliament. The package enabled private schools to provide education in Kurdish, and election propaganda in Kurdish at elections. Parties receiving over 3 percent of the vote will qualify for State benefit.

Abdullah Öcalan voiced his demand for the government to form a delegation for negotiations, the acceleration of legal steps, and increase of the frequency of visits to İmralı. His proposals were announced by members of parliament in the İmralı delegation.

PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s letter was delivered to Iraqi Kurdistan Autonomous Region President by members of parliament Leyla Zana ve Sırrı Süreyya Önder. Leyla Zana said, “We witnessed that Barzani and Öcalan’s views regarding the freedom of the peoples of the region and the Kurdish people were close”.

A court issued a verdict for the removal from billboards of posters hung up in Diyarbakır/Amed featuring a new photograph of the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. The poster featured the BDP’s call for participation in events to be organized on the anniversary of 15 February 1999, the date when Öcalan was captured in Kenya and brought to Turkey.

Members of parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder, İdris Baluken and Pervin Buldan travelled to İmralı Island to hold a meeting with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. Qandil’s demand for ‘a legal ground to be established for the solution process’ was discussed at the meeting.

BDP Group Deputy Chairpersons Pervin Buldan and İdris Baluken travelled to the Iraqi Kurdish Autonomous Region to hold a meeting with the KCK administration. Details of the meeting held on January 11 with the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was on the agenda of the meeting in Qandil. The BDP delegation also took delivery from KCK execuvites of the response to the 20-page letter Öcalan gave them to be conveyed to Qandil in their January 11 meeting.

Leyla Zana became the first person other than BDP delegations and HDP MP Sırrı Süreyya Önder to hold a meeting with Abdullah Öcalan at İmralı Island. HDP Istanbul Member of Parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Independent Member of Parliament Leyla Zana travelled to İmralı Island. BDP Group Deputy Chairperson Pervin Buldan announced that there would be no change in the composition of the delegations that regularly visited İmralı Island.

PYD declared autonomy in the Rojava region in the north of Syria where the majority of the population is Kurdish.

Letters Abdullah Öcalan wrote to organization administrators in Europe and Qandil were delivered by the BDP delegation. The letters in which Öcalan provided detailed information about the withdrawal of armed forces to positions beyond the border were delivered to Qandil by BDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş and HDP Member of Parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder, and to Brussels by Pervin Buldan.

Kongra-Gel Chairperson and former DEP Member of Parliament Remzi Kartal stated that PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan granted the government time for the solution of the Kurdish question until the end of the election period. Speaking to the Hawlati newspaper published in Iraq, Kartal criticized relationships between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurdish Autonomous Region.

Abdullah Öcalan’s new photographs were shared on social media. In the photographs, Öcalan posed with members of parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Pervin Buldan and İdris Baluken, who were visiting him. The photographs of Abdullah Öcalan and the İmralı delegation were taken by a prison official.

Pervin Buldan and İdris Baluken from BDP, and Sırrı Süreyya Önder from HDP held the 14th meeting with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan at İmralı Prison. The visit of the BDP-HDP delegation was the first visit after the corruption and bribery operation on 17 December which led to the escalation of the clash between the government and the Hizmet Movement. Öcalan, commenting on the clash between the government and the Hizmet Movement, said, “Those who want once again to turn the country into bedlam by igniting the fire of a coup, should know that we will not pour gasolene onto such a fire. We will stand in the way of every attempt at carrying out a coup, as we have done until now”. Having met with the State delegation on 7 December, and his niece Dilek Öcalan on 23 December, Öcalan had said, “Our meetings with the State delegation are continuing. Our most recent meetings have been positive. The progress of meetings bodes well for now”.

The Presidency of General Staff announced that an operation had been carried out in Bingöl’s Genç district in order to determine the location of and neutralize PKK members.

For the first time in 12 years, new photographs of PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan were broadcast by Dicle News Agency (DİHA). In photographs of Öcalan alone, and with BDP delegation members, it was seen that his hair had turned grey and that he had put on weight.

HDP co-chairpersons Sebahat Tuncel and Ertuğrul Kürkçü and members of parliament Levent Tüzel and Sırrı Süreyya Önder began a hunger strike in Parliament in protest of the failure to release imprisoned BDP members of parliament.

Leyla Zana, speaking at the conference on ‘The European Union, (EU) Turkey and the Kurds’ held at the European Parliament, stated that the peace process initiated during the AKP’s term in government was different than others. Zana said, “The difference of the İmralı peace process from previous attempts at peace is that it is being carried out personally by the two people with a real say in the question, by two powerful leaders. Esteemed Mr. Öcalan’s influence over Kurdish public opinion is indisputable in the same way that Prime Minister Erdoğan’s influence is over Turkish public opinion”.

Cemil Bayık stated that they had given the government time until Spring 2014, and if no steps were taken, clashes could resume.

The Solution Commission of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) presented its report to parliament. Commission Chairperson Naci Bostancı said, “it has been determined that the solution process has established a negative peace, and that something needs to be done to orient it towards a positive peace”.

Erdoğan stated that it was impossible for them to accept Osman Baydemir’s definition of “Kurdistan of Turkey”.

Şivan Perwer, the singer from Urfa who had lived in exile for 37 years, and Masoud Barzani, the President of the Iraqi Kurdistan [autonomous] Region came together in Diyarbakır/Amed. Barzani declared his support for the solution process. Şivan Perwer duetted with singer İbrahim Tatlıses on the song ‘Megri’ (Don’t Cry).

Prime Minister Erdoğan visited the Diyarbakır/Amed Metropolitan Municipality for the first time in the 11 years he has been in power, where he held a meeting with Mayor Osman Baydemir.

A Constituent Assembly of 82 members was formed for the Western Kurdistan Interim Administration in progress in Rojava.

The Kurdish National Congress, the last of the four conferences proposed by Öcalan, and the most critical stage, was postponed for the third time.

Sırrı Süreyya Önder was re-included in the İmralı delegation. Önder announced that at their meeting Öcalan had said, “The solution process has come to a serious stage. Although the process is continuing, it is now on the narrow bridge of judgment. Despite all the negative developments, we are determined to sustain the will for peace, even if it is unilateral”.

BDP voiced its reaction against the detentions and arrests of its members. The BDP Diyarbakır/Amed Provincial Organization announced that “the process would come to an end if things continue in this manner”.

Cemil Bayık demanded the improvement of Öcalan’s conditions, the establishment of a legal platform, and the inclusion of a third party for the continuation of the process.

BDP Co-Chairperson Gültan Kışanak, commenting on the wall to be built along the Rojava border, said, “We will not allow that wall to be built, even if it costs us our lives”.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the “Democratization Package”. BDP and DTK stated that the package had turned out to be empty.

A BDP delegation featuring Selahattin Demirtaş and Pervin Buldan made a critical visit to İmralı following the stalling of the solution process and PKK’s announcement that it had stopped withdrawal. Öcalan had met with intelligence officials during the same week. Following this tenth meeting, the BDP delegation announced Öcalan’s messages: “My opinion is that it is necessary to continue the dialogue process we initiated a year ago with a new format from now on, in other words, by evolving and deepening the process into meaningful negotiations. I have communicated the means and tools necessary for meaningful negotiations to both the State and Qandil. It is of utmost importance for the progress of the process for especially the State to create the adequate tools and means for in-depth negotiations. At this stage, I would like to declare that I find it worthy of mention that the state of reciprocal ceasefire is being observed. We are all aware that the process is highly meaningful. However, we all also know that it will be tough and arduous as much as it is meaningful.”

PKK announced that since May 8 when they initiated withdrawal, 29 groups composed of around 600 people had withdrawn to positions outside Turkey.

Following a Security Summit on the solution process held at the Prime Minister’s Office, the government’s determination in the continuation of the process was emphasized.

PKK announced that it had stopped its withdrawal because the government was not taking steps on democratization and the solution of the Kurdish question. On the same day, the BDP announced that it was going to participate in the 2014 local elections under the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) banner as well as BDP.

KCK Executive Council Directorate issued a message on the occasion of September 1, World Peace Day, stating that wars for power have left the Middle East facing a blind alley in the full sense of the word. The statement read, “The just peace project initiated by Leader Apo is about to be cut off by an ‘integrated strategy’. Forces of democracy must prevent this. We will respond to the AKP’s diversion policies on September 1”.

BDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş stated that the government was informed about the dates the PKK had given, but that they no longer had any hope that this calendar would be met.

PKK made a statement, saying, “AKP is preparing for war. They want to expel Kurds from Rojava”.

Interior Minister Muammer Güler announced that the expected outcome from the first phase of the solution process could not be achieved.

KCK Executive Council Co-Chairperson Cemil Bayık said, “the Hizmet Movement is opposed to a solution”.

KCK Executive Council Co-Chairperson Cemil Bayık announced that they were going to stop the withdrawal if they did not see a concrete step from the government by September 1, and that the armed forces that had withdrawn to positions outside Turkey’s borders would return. Cemil Bayık said, “If they fulfill their responsibilities, I hope this process can be saved from collapsing. That would be to the benefit of all. Otherwise, we might witness terrible consequences”.

The request of PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan’s lawyers for a meeting with their client was refused.

In Mardin’s Nusaybin district, thousands of women from both sides of the border came together. The vigil held at the Nusaybin-Qamişlo border was ended in the morning.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that they would on no account make concessions regarding the first three articles of the Constitution. It was announced that the AKP would withdraw its proposal for the relevant article to declare, ‘The official language is Turkish” and support the proposal of the CHP and MHP, which declares, ‘The language is Turkish’.

HPG made a statement, saying, “We are withdrawing, however, we have taken no steps other than halting our operations. The forces that have withdrawn are not elderly or sick”.

The final declaration of the Language Conference held in Diyarbakır/Amed stated the decisions, “TZP-KURDİ [Kurdish Intellectuals and Linguists from Turkey and Northern Iraq, the Kurdish Education and Language Movement] perceives education in the native language as an inalienable right. All Kurdish institutes and institutions must hold a collective debate on education in the native language. In Kurdish language education, history, literature, geography and culture courses will be presented in addition to grammar courses”.

Local media reports stated that special forces units were carrying out ‘OHAL’ [Emergency State] practices in Van’s Çatak district, and that the people reacted especially against checkpoints and controls.

The BDP Bitlis Provincial Organization and local NGOs announced that mass graves of guerrillas murdered in Bitlis in 1993 were destroyed following an attack by an armoured police vehicle and a digger.

In the Taşdelen village of the Uludere district of Şırnak, the people rallied to the dam construction site where work recently began.

The KCK Executive Council Directorate issued a call to the people of Rojava to not abandon the country. In a statement, the Directorate said, “The stance of the South Kurdistan government encourages the gangs attacking Rojava, and Turkey, that urges them to attack. Instead of taking steps, the government has opted for diversion and demobilization”.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan stated that they would announce the democratization package in 1-2 weeks. Erdoğan said, “We will never end operations in this country before disarmament takes place. We endured certain intolerable incidents in order not to carry out operations”.

Wise Persons Delegation member Celalettin Can travelled to Qandil, where he held a meeting with KCK Executive Council Co-Chairperson Cemil Bayık. Bayık said, “Skepticism regarding the process has increased. We are trying to draw the AKP towards democracy. We are a movement that has a discourse and determination. We do not need to blackmail anyone. We want the problem to be solved not by war but politics. We are not considering armed struggle at present”.

“We Want Justice” actions for the 3 women massacred in Paris on January 9 continue.

Rallies were held in Yüksekova, Siirt, Batman, Mersin and Adana to draw attention to the prison conditions of Abdullah Öcalan and seriously ill prisoners.

PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan was transferred to a larger room in İmralı Prison.

HPG made a statement, announcing, “The Turkish army and Turkish State have taken no steps whatsoever to stop its operations aiming at destruction”.

It was announced that the Kurdish National Congress would be held in Hewler/Erbil on 15, 16, 17 September. It was stated that 600 delegates and 300 guests would participate in the congress.

A delegation, formed during the Congress, went to Rojava to carry out examinations. The Rojava delegation carried out its first contacts yesterday in Dêrik, in areas bombed by the regime’s helicopters.

Rallies were held in Mersin and Urfa for seriously ill prisoners in prisons.

Chief Advisor to the Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan said, “the steps that have been taken are being overlooked. We are conducting the solution process with determination and patience”.

Cemil Bayık argued that Turkey was not serious about the peace process, saying, “If the process collapses, let alone the PKK’s withdrawal, those who have withdrawn to the south could return to the north. Then there may be an even greater war”.

HPG made a statement, saying, “The announced statistics constitute a complete distortion of facts. Our forces have fulfilled their task for the current period. The statement of the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan claiming, ‘promises have not been kept, only 20% have withdrawn’ do not reflect the truth”.

The BDP delegation returned from İmralı Island, where it held a meeting with PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan. According to the delegation’s announcement, Abdullah Öcalan said, “Our meetings and discussions with the State delegation continue. From our viewpoint, the process continues in this aspect. Until this phase I found it meaningful that my position was ascribed an instrumental value, however from this point on, my position must evolve from an instrumental to a strategic position. For me to contribute to a solution to both Turkey’s domestic problems, and also problems in the region with Syria first and foremost among them, my position must be treated strategically. I also think that for the process to progress in a healthy manner, it is necessary for the government to take practical steps regarding democratization via democratization packages to be prepared with a participatory method”.

KCK Executive Council Co-Chairperson Cemil Bayık stated that the AKP government displayed an unserious approach to the democratic solution process, saying, “What the AKP is preparing are not democracy packages but packages of trickery and diversion. Turkey is imposing demobilization in Rojava. If it were to succeed in that in Rojava, it will impose the same in Northern Kurdistan”.

YPG (People’s Protection Units) announced the outcome of last month’s clashes that ensued following attacks initiated by Al-Qaida affiliated groups in mid-July. According to the report, while more than 800 gang members were killed, around 80 YPG fighters lost their lives, 700 Kurdish civilians were abducted.

Following the ruling of a Denmark court to cancel the licences of Roj TV, MMC and Nuçe TV, it was announced that the broadcast of these channels would cease.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan, announced that [the issues of] native language and general amnesty would not be included in the new constitutional package.

Jabhat al-Akrad leader Hajji Ahmed Kurdi drew attention to the fact that attacks in Rojava targeted the 117 Kurdish villages in the region, declaring that in clashes that took place yesterday and the previous day around Aleppo 2 MİT members were killed, and that they would announce their identities in the coming days.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, claimed that the percentage of guerrillas who had withdrawn following PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan stood at 20%. Erdoğan also commented on the native divide split our country. If you do not get the timing well, then it will be a shame for our beautiful country. If you clear the way for education in native language, then you will damage the official language”.

İHH officials, facing claims that they provided support to gangs that realized the attacks and massacres in Rojava, held a meeting with BDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş and claimed they had been misunderstood and were being accused unjustly because of disinformation.

PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan requested that the 5 imprisoned alongside himself on İmralı Island be replaced by 8 high-ranking PKK members being held captive so that he could hold more sophisticated discussions on the solution process, and carry out an exchange of ideas.

KCK Executive Council Co-Chairperson Cemil Bayık said, “The Turkish State should stop coming up with excuses, and come to reason. Attacks continue on the Rojava revolution from multiple fronts”.

BDP Co-Chairperson Gültan Kışanak said, “A package prepared without taking the needs of the people into account, without addressing the people, and with an attitude of ‘I know best’ behind closed doors, will not be the remedy for the problem”.

The BestaNuçe television channel announced that the Turkish army had increased its military concentration in the Varto rural area of Muş despite the peace process, and had increased the frequency of road checks in Beytüşşebap.

PYD Co-Chairperson Salih Müslim said, “Autonomy or independence are definitely not on the agenda. In Turkey, we will discuss the future of Kurds within the integrity of Syria.”

Kurds were attacked in Aydın. 10 people were injured.

Head of the HPG and PKK executive Murat Karayılan announced they were preparing for a transition to “professional guerrillas”. Karayılan also said, “If the negotiations do not progress, a dangerous process will begin. The Turkish government has put too much emphasis on the importance of Rojava. The plan is to end the Kurdish people’s rule in Rojava. If Turkey were to abandon this policy, the war would end in 2 days”.

Preparations for the establishment of an autonomous administration in Rojava gathered speed. The project involves the establishment of a temporary administration in the region at first, and later an assembly comprising all components. PYD Co-Chairperson Asya Abdullah stated that they had entered the second phase in preparations for autonomous administration, adding, “We are including every social section in the preparations”.

PYD (Democratic Union Party) – of Rojava, the de facto autonomous Kurdish region in Northern Syria – Co-Chairperson Salih Muslim visited Turkey for the second time upon an official invite from the Foreign Ministry.

PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan held a meeting with his sister Fatma Öcalan at İmralı, and pointed to the date October 1 with the words, “The government must take a step until October 1. I am not saying that I will withdraw from the process after October 1, but if no step is taken by that date, it is clear that we cannot develop the process”.

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç stated that the withdrawal percentage of the PKK was around 20%. However, the PKK stated that the withdrawal process had been completed, and that it was necessary to initiate the second phase.

BDP Co-Chairperson Gültan Kışanak, speaking on behalf of the delegation visiting Qandil, stated that they were concerned about the progress of the process.

The PKK and the KCK, with the participation of around 200 people attending from Europe and other regions, held the 9th General Assembly of Kongra-Gel (Kurdistan People’s Congress) in Qandil from 30 June to 5 July.

At the assembly, KCK Executive Council Chairperson Murat Karayılan was appointed as head of the HPG (People’s Defence Force), the armed wing of the organization. The procedure of appointing co-chairpersons to the Executive Council was approved. Cemil Bayık and Bese Hozat became co-chairpersons.

The crowd gathered for a rally organized in Diyarbakır/Amed by the BDP with the slogan “Government, time to take a step!” was attacked by the police with water cannons and pepper gas, demonstrators responded by setting off fireworks and throwing stones.

Soldiers murdered Medeni Yıldırım during a protest in Lice against the construction of a kalekol [fortress-military station].

The final meeting of the Wise Persons’ Delegation was held in Istanbul. The “Wise Persons” presented Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan the reports they prepared on the process following their work in seven regions across Turkey. One day before the meeting, Murat Belge resigned from the delegation in reaction to AKP’s stance against protestors during and after Gezi resistance. Other members of the delegation, Baskın Oran and Kürşat Bümin were also to resign later (16 and 17 October, 2014) due to the AKP’s policy towards Kurds in response to the Kobani protests.

Prime Minister Erdoğan announced that only 15% of PKK members had withdrawn from Turkey to date.

Wise Persons’ Delegation member writer Murat Belge criticized the government’s stance regarding the Gezi Park protests that began during the solution process, and resigned from his position.

BDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş announced that the first phase of the solution process, consisting of the declaration of ceasefire and withdrawal had concluded, and that the second phase had begun. The government was expected to take legal steps in the second phase.

The continuing construction of kalekols, or fortress-military stations, was protested in many cities and towns. Security forces continued to apply excessive use of force and carry out executions in targeting the continuing Gezi resistance.

The “Northern Kurdistan Unity and Solution Conference” also recommended by Abdullah Öcalan in his Newroz letter, was held in Diyarbakır/Amed. The final declaration of the conference demanded freedom for Öcalan. The declaration also added that ‘the peoples of Kurdistan have the right to national self-determination (such as autonomy-federation-independence) on the basis of only their own decisions and approval’. The conference also repeated the call on all international organizations and states to remove the PKK from the list of terrorist organisations.

A PKK group of 15 members that had withdrawn from within Turkey’s borders reached the Metina camp in Northern Iraq.

BDP Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş and BDP Parliamentary Group Deputy Chairperson Pervin Buldan met with PKK executives at Qandil to discuss the process. The delegation that last met with Abdullah Öcalan at İmralı on 7 June, thus conveyed Öcalan’s messages to Qandil.

PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan announced that he saluted the Gezi resistance and added: “However, no one should allow themselves to be used by nationalist circles, or circles favouring a military coup.” BDP MP Sırrı Süreyya Önder, who became a symbolic figure of the Gezi resistance, was excluded from the delegation to travel to İmralı.

The Gezi resistance began.

The first of the four conferences Öcalan proposed for the solution process, Democracy and Peace Conference, was held in Ankara on 25-26 May

President Barack Obama announced their support to the solution process during Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan’s official visit to the US. Obama said, “I want to take this opportunity to commend you and the Turkish people for your courage in seeking an historic and peaceful resolution of the PKK violence that has plagued Turkey for so long. And just as the United States has stood with you in your long search for security, we will support efforts in Turkey to uphold the rule of law and good governance and human rights for all.”

KCK Executive Council Chairperson Murat Karayılan announced that the PKK was disturbed by the new military station and dam constructions.

The Iraq Foreign Ministry announced its opposition to the entry into Iraqi territory of PKK members withdrawing from Turkey.

As it had announced previously, the PKK began to withdraw from within Turkey’s borders. The first phase was to involve groups exiting via the Şemdinli District of Hakkari Province to reach Iraq within a week.

The withdrawal was to be carried out in secret, and was also to be observed by the Turkish Armed Forces. At this point, the Prime Minister made a statement announcing that there were around 1500-2000 PKK members in Turkey.

Nechervan Barzani, Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, announced that they supported the solution process.

The Ministry of Justice announced that 200 suspects under arrest in the KCK trial had been released in the last two months.

25 April 2013

KCK Executive Council Member Murat Karayılan held a press conference at Qandil with the attendance of a large group of journalists from Turkey and international press organizations. Karayılan announced that PKK members within the borders of Turkey would begin to gradually withdraw on May 8.

Murat Karayılan stated that the organization would take the decision to disarm only as part of a process in which constitutional changes were made, and Abdullah Öcalan was freed completely. Karayılan added that the village guard system had to be abolished, and that the Special Forces and similar organizations operating within the body of the security forces of Turkey had to be disestablished.

Muammer Güler has been appointed as the Ministry of Interior. The reassignment took place as part of the AKP cabinet change, as part of which previous minister İdris Naim Şahin was replaced with former Governor of İstanbul Province.

During the reception held at TGNA on the ocassion of the National Sovereignty and Children’s Day, President Abdullah Gül said “For the resolution process to continue and end with success, the terrorist organization must lay down its arms both in and out of the country,” in response to a question as to whether there are any drawbacks to the resolution process.

News appeared on media that the construction of kalekols – fortress-like high-security military stations – and regular military stations have accelerated since the beginning of ceasefire and solution process.

18 April 2013

The BDP delegation conveyed PKK Leader Öcalan’s five-page letter on the solution process and withdrawal to the PKK’s headquarters in Qandil, Northern Iraq.

14 April 2013

The BDP delegation travelled to İmralı for the fifth time. The delegation included BDP MPs Pervin Buldan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder.

The BDP presented a legislative proposal for the abolishment of the village guard system at the same date. Stating that the village guard system had turned into a ‘small army’, the BDP argued that this system had to be disestablished as part of the normalization process.

11 April 2013

Known publicly as the fourth judicial reform package, the “Draft Law on Amendments to Certain Laws in the Context of Human Rights and Freedom of Expression” was accepted at the General Assembly of the Parliament and became law. According to this new law, in sentencing those who carried out propaganda for a terror organization, or printed and broadcast their announcements and declarations, ‘legitimizing and praising methods involving force, violence or intimidation, or the encouragement of the employment of such methods’ was set as a condition.

9 April 2013

At a parliamentary vote, which the main opposition party CHP, and the other opposition party MHP (National Movement Party) did not attend, the “Solution Process Commission” was formed with votes in favour from the AKP and the BDP.

4 April 2013

Prime Minister Erdoğan met for the first time with the Wise Persons’ Delegation at the Prime Minister’s Office in Dolmabahçe, Istanbul. Here, Erdoğan announced his message, “The solution process is a process in which arms will be set aside, and politics will be put to use”.

Erdoğan said, “Now is not the time to settle accounts, but the time for both sides to give each other their blessings,” and went on to add, “Now is the time to realize the law of fraternity. Now is the time to emphasize not differences but shared values, the time to bring to the fore not sorrows, but shared victories and shared joys. Now is the time not to separate, but to celebrate. Now is the time to initiate a period of social restoration, and to follow it through with determination”.

3 April 2013

The government formed a “Wise Persons Delegation” to contribute to the solution process, featuring artists and writers such as Orhan Gencebay, Kadir İnanır, Yılmaz Erdoğan and Lale Mansur among its members.The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) delegation, formed of Co-Chairperson Selahattin Demirtaş, and also Pervin Buldan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder, travelled to İmralı for the fourth time.

Öcalan sent a letter to the PKK asking it to comply with the instruction to withdraw to positions beyond Turkey’s borders.

2 April 2013

Government spokesperson Bülent Arınç commented on the PKK’s withdrawal process: “This is under the authority of the government. There is no ground for this to be discussed in parliament, and there shouldn’t be.”

KCK Executive Council member Cemil Bayık made a statement saying, “Guerrillas the Guerrilla force cannot take a single step back without receiving legal assurance”.

1 April 2013

The PKK reacted to the Prime Minister’s announcement for it “to disarm”, and stated that “disarmed withdrawal was not part of their agenda”.

30 March 2013

Prime Minister Erdoğan announced that PKK members would not be allowed to withdraw from Turkey with their arms, and that therefore organization members had to first disarm and then withdraw.

29 March 2013

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that the process was developing as planned. Prime Minister Erdoğan responded to criticism from the opposition by saying that no concessions at all would be made to Öcalan and the PKK in the process, that the conditions of Öcalan’s cell had been improved, and that it was not possible to take any further step. Erdoğan added that house confinement for Öcalan was out of the question, and that claims that there would be transition to autonomous administration in the Southeast did not reflect the truth.

Umbrella organization KCK, which also includes the PKK, announced that it was necessary to form the legal ground for armed PKK members to withdraw from Turkey, and that concrete steps had to be taken.

23 March 2013

The PKK declared ceasefire.

22 March 2013

PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s letter calling on the PKK to declare ceasefire and withdraw from within Turkey’s borders was read out at the Newroz celebration in Diyarbakır/Amed. Abdullah Öcalan’s letter included no call for disarmament.

A verdict of non-prosecution was declared regarding five MİT staff including MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan. On 7 February 2012, Hakan Fidan, and two high-ranking staff who had played an active role in the Oslo negotiations had been summoned to testify as “suspects” by a specially authorized prosecutor. Erdoğan had blocked this attempt by the prosecutor and police officers, who were allegedly allied with the Hizmet Movement. This incident was to become one of the main points of rupture between the [formerly closely aligned] AKP and the Gülen Community.

21 March 2013

Prime Minister Erdoğan announced that they were working on forming a delegation of “wise persons”.

15 March 2013

Murat Karayılan, acting leader of the PKK, announced their decision to strongly participate in Öcalan’s solution perspective.

28 February 2013

Minutes of the BDP delegation’s meeting with Öcalan were published in the daily Milliyet newspaper.

23 February 2013

The BDP delegation (Pervin Buldan, Sırrı Süreya Önder, Altan Tan) went to İmralı.

19 February 2013

In the Diyarbakır/Amed KCK (Group of Communities in Kurdistan) Main Trial, ten detainees including Fırat Anlı, who was elected Diyarbakır/Amed Co-Mayor while in prison, were released.

8 February 2013

Erdoğan announced that MİT (National Intelligence Organization) Undersecretary Hakan Fidan had held a meeting with Öcalan at İmralı.

3 February 2013

Prime Minister Erdoğan’s statement: “It is out of the question for us to cease our struggle against the separatist terror organization without disarmament.” The same day, Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) carried out an air operation on the Pülümür Valley in Dersim and its environs.

24 January 2013

The right of self-defense in one’s mother tongue became law.

9 January 2013

Sakine Cansız, a leading figure of the PKK, was massacred in Paris alongside Fidan Doğan and Leyla Söylemez.

6 January 2013

Prime Minister Erdoğan rejected the “credit” offered by CHP Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu: “Who do you think you are offering credit, you need credit yourself! We will succeed if we can join forces. Yet we still have not done that yet, we receive the necessary support neither from print nor visual media, nor from civilian society organizations… This is not the way to carry out a struggle against the separatist terror organization.”

5 January 2013

Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu declared his support to the government in its negotiations with Öcalan: “Despite all its mistakes in the past, we offer the Justice and Development Party (AKP) a new credit. Solve the problem”.

4 January 2013

Minister of Internal Affairs İdris Naim Şahin announced that military operations against the PKK would continue.

3 January 2013

Democratic Society Congress (DTK) Chairperson and Mardin Independent Member of Parliament Ahmet Türk and Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Batman Member of Parliament Ayla Akat held a meeting with PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) leader Abdullah Öcalan at İmralı Prison.

* Based on [the reports of] İMC TV, Al Jazeera Türk, Wikipedia, bianet, Kurdistan Center for Strategic Studies, the chronology prepared by İrfan Aktan and various other sources.