CHP continues to circumvent Kurdish issue with Kılıçdaroğlu

“Kılıçdaroğlu’s remarks cannot be called redundant. But the Kurdish issue is not simply an issue of terrorism and cannot be solved only with economic measures. He neither brought up proposals that would help destroy sources which feed terrorism nor a new mechanism to fight against terrorism,” Kurdish intellectual Mehmet Metiner told Sunday’s Zaman.

Metiner, who stated that it seems that the CHP still does not have a comprehensive plan to address the Kurdish issue, thinks that Kılıçdaroğlu will not touch upon the Kurdish issue in detail until parliamentary elections to be held next year. “I don’t think he will say something noteworthy, either, on the Kurdish issue or the Alevi issue, although he has both Kurdish and Alevi ancestry. I don’t have hope that he will contribute to a solution to the issue. But I wish he did,” Metiner says.

Kılıçdaroğlu brought some proposals to Erdoğan during Thursday’s meeting, which mainly focused on the CHP’s view that improving the economy of the Southeast is the best solution to terrorism. Recalling that Erdoğan told him that investments amounting to $25 billion have been made in the region, mainly in road and hospital construction, Kılıçdaroğlu said these are not enough. “There is a serious unemployment problem in the region. The private sector is not going to the region for investment. So the state should go and establish factories to create employment there,” Kılıçdaroğlu said. As for the question by reporters about why he perceives the issue only in economic grounds, he said it is the task of the government to ponder other sides of the issue.

He also added that they proposed that the government give land to landless villagers after clearing it of land mines. Aside from his proposals on addressing terrorism, Kılıçdaroğlu also urged Erdoğan to lower the 10 percent election threshold to 7 percent and to abolish specially authorized courts.

According to Star daily columnist Mustafa Karaalioğlu, the biggest of Kılıçdaroğlu’s mistakes is his perception that the problem is a purely economic one. “Kılıçdaroğlu implies, saying to the people who have concerns of identity, that ‘no, you are hungry. That’s why you are speaking like that.’ However, it is not possible for him, a 60-year-old person who knows the region well, to skip what the problem actually is,” he wrote in his column on Friday. He says it would be a surprise if Kılıçdaroğlu had urged Erdoğan to take more democratic steps, which would bring more democratic and cultural rights to the people in the region. “Now, we all know how this problem is solved and how it cannot be solved. … It is in vain no matter how much you improve stockbreeding in a region where your life is under threat. It does not matter how much land you distribute in a place where the security of those who are on this land are not under guarantee,” he adds.

What about a new Kurdish report?

According to Human Rights Association (İHD) President Öztürk Türkdoğan, the Kurdish issue should be well defined. “Economic measures are only a part of the issue. This problem is a social and human rights problem,” he said.

Recalling that the CHP accepted the existence of the Kurdish problem in a 1989 report, Türkdoğan said the Republic of Turkey officially accepted the existence of the Kurdish problem last year, when the government launched its Kurdish initiative to address the issue. “The prime minister said last year that the period of rejecting the Kurdish issue had ended. It is not that important if the leader of any party does accept the existence of the problem,” he says.

Türkdoğan still has some hope, however, on a change of stance within the CHP regarding the Kurdish issue based on a recent CHP decision to form a commission in order to study the Kurdish issue. “The proposals Kılıçdaroğlu voiced during the meeting with Erdoğan seem superficial. I think we should wait for the new CHP report to make further comments on the issue.”

In 1989 the CHP prepared a Kurdish report in which it suggested that the obstacles to using the Kurdish language in every field, including education, should be removed, that Kurdish language departments should be established at universities and that the village guard system should be abolished. The report was later taken off the party’s website, and the CHP leadership shied way from supporting government efforts advocating similar resolutions.

However, the Yeni Şafak daily reported on Friday that Kılıçdaroğlu, who wanted to present an updated version of the 1989 CHP report about the Kurdish problem to Erdoğan, failed to do so due to pressure from Önder Sav. Sav’s influence on the party and party leader Kılıçdaroğlu is well known. He played a major role in Kılıçdaroğlu’s ascension to party leadership following Deniz Baykal’s resignation in May.