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Does Turkey Have a Roadmap For Peace With the PKK?

Orhan Kemal Cengiz is not sure that the Turkish government has a comprehensive peace plan, and says that if they do the PKK is certainly unaware of it.

PKK fighters stand guard during the release of eight Turkish prisoners in the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk, March 13, 2013.  Turkish Kurd militants freed a group of Turkish soldiers and officials they had held in the mountains of northern Iraq for more than a year on Wednesday, the first concrete step in efforts to end their 28-year-old insurgency. The six soldiers, a police officer and a local official looked in good health and wore clean clothes as they were handed to a delegation of Turkish rights activi
PKK fighters stand guard during the release of eight Turkish prisoners in the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk, March 13, 2013. — REUTERS/Azad Lashkari

I have always doubted whether the Turkish government has a comprehensive peace plan with the PKK, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, whose war with the state has claimed more than 40,000 lives in the past three decades. After reading some statements of Murat Karayilan, acting leader of the PKK on Kandil Mountain in Northern Iraq, my curiosity peaked. Karayilan, in his statement published by T24 news portal on March 24, said, “They do not know if the government has a project for the solution.” Yet still, he also said that they will follow the call of Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned leader of the PKK, and they will leave the country.

Karayilan was unsure of the process, for neither government nor Abdullah Ocalan explained any comprehensive road map leading to the peace. We can detect some elements from various statements of the parties but no one knows how Turkey will complete this process.

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