Jailed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, leader Abdullah Ocalan said in his Newroz message on Saturday that the “PKK must convene a congress to end the 40-year armed conflict against Turkey.”
The message of the PKK-leader, jailed in Turkey since 1999, was read in front of hundreds of thousands of Kurdish people in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey. It was read by pro-Kurdish party Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy chairperson Pervin Buldan in the Kurdish language and by HDP Istanbul lawmaker Sirri Sureyya Onder in Turkish.
“We face the duty of initiating a new process based on the ten-point historical declaration made officially public in the Dolmabahce Palace,” Ocalan said in the message.
On Feb. 28, Turkish Deputy PM Yalcin Akdogan and Interior Minister Efkan Ala met with HDP leaders, including the party’s deputy chairs, Pervin Buldan and Idris Baluken, and Istanbul lawmaker Sirri Sureyya Onder at the Prime Ministry’s office in Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul.
Onder said at the time that his party’s support for the solution process was based on 10 “basic principles” that would constitute the backbone of a true democracy.
The Turkish government launched in early 2013 the initiative what is publicly known as the "solution process" to end the decades-old conflict with the outlawed PKK, a dispute which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people over in about 40 years.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey as well as by the US and the European Union.
