Interviews

Karayilan sets conditions to extend ceasefire

Kurdistan Democratic Confederation leader Murat Karayilan set conditions to extend the ceasefire that will last on September 20.Declaration of ceasefire is “a chance for peace”.

President of the KCK Murat Karayilan said that the aim of the ceasefire is to pave the way of a bilateral truce between Turkish state and the PKK.

He demanded the release of the 1700 Kurdish politicians and activists still in jail. Karayilan also said that Turkish state must lay out the framework for Kurdish national leader Abdullah Ocalan's active participation to the peace process

Karayilan labeled 10 percent election threshold as a barrier to Kurdish political parties and called Turkish to lower it.

“If all these conditions are met this process can lead to a sustainable peace” Karayilan said.

Karayilan said the  declaration of ceasefire is “a chance for peace”.

Karayilan also called the president of Federal Kurdistan Government Massoud Barzani to take role in peace process and welcomed Barzani’s statements after the declaration of ceasefire.

“This process can move forward if Turkish state and AKP government take steps. If they don’t it will end in a stalemate” Karayilan said.

 

KCK president said vote could change if government acts on Kurdish demands


Kurdish Democratic Confederation (KCK) president Murat Karayilan said they may reconsider boycott decision against constitutional referendum if ruling AKP takes certain steps in favor of Kurds.

Karayilan said if there were no declaration of ceasefire on PKK’s side, the possible outcome of the constitutional amendments would possibly be rejected on the September 12 referendum.

“It’s clear that Kurdish votes will have a direct impact on the referendum results” he said.

As Kurds are campaigning for boycott Karayilan signaled that the color of Kurdish votes may change.

“If Kurds' demands are met the Kurds and the Kurdish movement will reconsider the boycott decision” Karayilan said.

Karayilan underlined a need for a democratic constitution and said that only a new constitution will help to solve the Kurdish Question.

 

Chemical weapons in use for 16 years

Karayilan said that the Turkish state army had been using chemical weapons for 16 years now. And, this has again brought to agenda before by a labororatuary in Munich/Germany.

He said that Turkey regularly uses chemical weapons in some areas against the guerrillas. This is not something new. The Turkish state army has been using chemical weapons against our guerrilla forces wherever they have got into difficulty against the guerrillas during the clashes since 1994.  Even in the spring of 1999, I think it was in May, 20 of our guerrillas under the command of friend Hamza, have been martyred near the village of Bilika/Cudi/Sirnak as a result of the use of chemical weapons by the Turkish state army. After the clashes, our friends found a tube of the chemical that had been used against the guerrillas on the scene where the clashes occurred. This tube was sent to Europe, where I was at that time. So, I personally followed closely on this issue to be analysed in the laboratories. And, we sent it to a lab in Munich, Germany to analyse the contents of the tube. After that, the result of the analysis was that there was a chemical element to effect a certain small area.

So, Germany knows that chemical weapons have been used against the guerrilla forces since that time. What I do not know is why they put this report on the agenda now. And, according to the reports in the press, they even took the case to the German parliament. So, for the last sixteen years there is use of chemical weapons against our guerrillas. Despite the result of the container with the chemical element, no one, including the international forces, either said or did anything about it. Somehow, we could not carry this to the international agenda at the time. Yet, now this has been put onto the agenda in Germany. It has to be followed to see how serious they can be to stay on this case. However, it is a reality that Turkey uses chemical weapons, not everywhere, but wherever they see it is as suitable to use.