The details, disclosed in a special session of Parliament, envisage more freedom for everyone, Interior Minister Beşir Atalay, the coordinator of the initiative, which was launched in mid-July, informed deputies. The plan drew strong criticism from the main-opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), whose leaders criticized the government's efforts for peace with harsh remarks yesterday.
According to Atalay, obstacles before using languages other than Turkish in “social and religious” services will be removed, former Kurdish names of settlements and geographical places will be restored and political campaigns in languages other than Turkish will be allowed.
As part of the democratization process, independent bodies will be established to promote and ensure human rights. For example, a law seeking to establish an independent body to work to eliminate discrimination will be brought before Parliament soon.
The structure of the Prime Ministry's Human Rights Directorate will be changed; it will be made independent. As a follow up to the approval of United Nations protocols on the prevention of torture, a national mechanism will be established to implement them.
Another independent body will be set up to monitor all complaints about security forces, especially as concerns violations of human rights. The interior minister also added that the government is working to remove checkpoints on roads in southeastern and eastern Anatolia and to ease traveling conditions in the region. “Amendments and mechanisms to be established aim to prevent any infringement on the freedoms of all our citizens, regardless of their ethnic origin, sex or political orientation,” Atalay told deputies. He emphasized that these measures are not everything and that more will follow because the government perceives the initiative as a dynamic process. Atalay also underlined that the Constitution has to be changed as it is out of touch with the people. “Our people do not deserve such a constitution. A new pluralistic constitution must be prepared with the broadest participation,” Atalay stressed.
‘Initiative has two aims’
Atalay underlined that the initiative has two goals -- to end terror and to improve democracy. Both are intertwined, he said.
Atalay further argued that the AK Party government has been working toward democratization due to its respect for humanity since it came to power and will continue to do so. He noted, however, that they will never change the basic principles of the state, which are listed in the first three articles of the Constitution -- namely, that Turkey is a secular, democratic and social state based on the principles of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the republic, and that its language is Turkish.
‘Guns could be silenced in three months’
Pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) leader Ahmet Türk urged the government to state its intentions clearly and as soon as possible and explain how it will implement them. He signaled that if the process is approached in a serious manner, guns will fall silent within three months.
Türk, who spoke in Parliament right after Atalay, underlined that Turkey’s Kurdish question should be solved inside Turkey and with its own dynamics. The lack of democracy and the denial of the existence of differences have made the problem open to the exploitation of foreign powers, he said.
He claimed that the country’s non-Kurdish citizens were denied access to accurate information about the pain and suffering of people in predominantly Kurdish regions as part of a campaign of psychological warfare. “This situation has created an enormous difference in perception and sentiment. The only way to fill this gap is to explain the realities of the Kurdish question to the public. Stopping official history is a must,” he said.
Türk said the existence of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and the US, is a result of the faulty policies pursued by the state and previous governments.
The DTP leader also asked deputies to empathize. “Think for a moment if people tell you there is no language called Turkish. Try educating your child in Kurdish despite him or her not knowing even one word of it. Will you be able to feel like an equal and respected citizen of the country?” he asked the deputies.
He stressed that even today state officials do not apologize for mistakes of the past. Türk added that the dispute is not between Kurds and Turks and that all Turkish citizens are in desperate need of democracy. “The problem is the official ideology of the state, which prevents its citizens from enjoying democracy and freedom,” he said.
Kurds do not have any problem with the country’s flag and border, he said, adding that there are many common values which keep the society united. “Our common language is Turkish. Even those who will be educated in their mother tongue will use Turkish as a common language of communication.”
He recommended a committee be established in Parliament with representatives from all political parties in order to find a democratic solution to the problem. “If this problem is the problem of all of us, if we have to find a solution, then the government, instead of trying to manage the process behind closed doors, should bring it to Parliament,” Türk suggested.
Bahçeli: This is an initiative for destruction
Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), claimed that terrorism was about to come to an end in 2002, when the ruling AK Party came to power, but after seven years, instead of the elimination of terror, the elimination of the nation-state has come to the agenda.
“Parliament is talking about a plan of destruction today. What we are witnessing is the realization of a desire for terror on the part of politicians. The desire is not for individual rights and democratization but to create a minority,” he said.
Bahçeli claimed that the government is building its efforts around the demands of the PKK and said this attitude is leading to the wrong perception, that is, is to think that the PKK is representative of all Kurds.
“This is a plot against our citizens and a serious threat. This is why the AK Party’s attitude has been wrong from the very beginning,” he said. Bahçeli suggested that the owner of the country is the Turkish nation and that it has unity. “Whatever the language of our mothers, our name is the Turkish nation,” he said. He claimed that for centuries there has been a plan to remove the Turkish nation from those lands and that this can be summarized as the mentality of crusaders; this problem is called the “East question.” “Whatever its name, opportunity or initiative, it is an extension of the East question,” he said.
“In our country, who can claim that ethnic origin is an obstacle to entering into trade, bureaucracy or administration? If there is a problem of expression, it is not because of the Constitution but because of the economic structure,” he said.
Baykal: Government negotiating with PKK
Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal claimed the government’s initiative is a process of deception and that it is not clear who it has taken on as a partner in this process.
Baykal added that the government is taking Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara, as an interlocutor.
“The government is talking to İmralı in secrecy. There is cooperation going on between the government and the PKK. But even laying down arms was not put forth as a precondition for this cooperation,” he said.
Baykal said the government’s fatal mistake in the process was to negotiate with an armed organization. “You don’t negotiate with terror, you fight with it,” he said.
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