Text size
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday extended full support for his nationalist ally’s appeal to Turkey’s Kurds, saying it opened a “window of opportunity”.
Last week, Devlet Bahceli, who heads Turkey’s ultra-nationalist MHP party, extended a shock olive branch to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, inviting him to parliament to renounce terror and disband his outlawed group.
Ocalan has been languishing in solitary confinement on a Turkish prison island since 1999.
Soon after this appeal, Turkey was shaken by an attack at the headquarters of the state-owned defence firm TAI that killed five and injured 22.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) claimed responsibility.
Several days later, Bahceli spoke of the brotherhood of Turks and Kurds and said: “Turks and Kurds must love each other, this is both a religious and a political obligation for both sides.”
Addressing lawmakers from his ruling AKP in parliament on Wednesday, Erdogan gave full backing to Bahceli.
In the MHP leader’s remarks, the Turkish people see “the window of historic opportunity that has opened before us, and are excited,” he said.
“My dear Kurdish brothers, we expect you to firmly grasp (Bahceli’s) sincerely outstretched hand,” Erdogan said, urged them to join in efforts to build what he called the “century of Turkey”.
“If God gives us the opportunity, we intend to.. remove (the conflict with the Kurds) entirely from the national agenda,” he said, he said, expressing hope it would be the “crowning achievement” of his political career.
But his appeal was not directed towards the “terror barons” in Iraq and Syria, he stressed.
The PKK, which has waged an on-off insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, is designated as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies.
In retaliation for last Wednesday’s attack, the Turkish army has bombed PKK targets in Iraq and Syria.
fo/hmw/db
