Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has called on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to lay down arms and leave the country.
Discussing the negotiations begun in 2012, Davutoglu said on Tuesday:
There is no point in not laying down arms while going ahead with the settlement process. We determined the steps to be taken by the parties while launching the settlement process. They [the PKK] should begin laying down their arms. They should have left the country in May of last year.
The initial stages of the Kurdish peace talks have been followed by a heightening of tensions between Ankara and the Kurdish community, especially since the summer, and an increase in PKK-related militancy throughout southeastern Turkey.
The PKK had originally agreed to leave Turkish soil in March 2013, but its military leader Cemil Bayik said last year that the group had halted its withdrawal to Iraq as the Turkish government had not taken agreed steps in the negotiations.
Davutoglu offered a scathing criticism of the pro-Kurdish Republican People’s Party (CHP) yesterday, referring to the Syrian Kurdish center of Kobane — besieged by the Islamic State — and calling for support for a campaign against the Syrian reigme:
We all displayed sensitivity for Kobane. We said we will oppose the cruelty in Kobane.
The jets of [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad have been pounding Aleppo for a week. Have you heard a statement from [opposition leader Kemal] Kılıçdaroğlu on this? Aren’t those leaving Aleppo human beings? Isn’t Assad as cruel as the Islamic State?
Davutoglu labeled the CHP “Turkish Baathists” who support the “Arab Baathists” of the Assad regime.
