The Kurdish leader, Abdullah Öcalan, has said that it is time to move from armed conflict to political conflict in Egypt. On 21 March, two BDP militants read in Newroz the letter of the imprisoned PKK leader, taking advantage of the holding of the Aberri Eguna in Kurdistan. It is news that can change the course of the history of this stateless nation.

“It is time to put arms aside and put ideas into dialogue, to take our armed forces out of the borders of [Turkey]. We have sacrificed the decades of our lives, but we can only be content, there has been nothing. The paradigm that the Kurds did not exist has fallen from the top down and we have strengthened our identity. This is the beginning, not the end.”

Öcalan states in his letter that his fight was not against the people, but against repression and injustices. It is now in a position to do politics and has called for the equality of ethnic minorities in the Basque Country. He has called for equality between all peoples: Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Armenians, Turcomans, Persians…

Negotiating process

The PKK and the Turkish Government are engaged in an ongoing negotiating process. Last September thousands of Kurdish prisoners began a hunger strike demanding a number of conditions: language rights and better prison conditions for Öcalan. When the situation came to an end, Öcalan himself called for the protest to be ended, and shortly thereafter, Ankara reported that the intelligence services had begun a process of dialogue with Öcalan.

Since then, movements have taken place on both sides and, for example, in January two BDP delegations made it possible to visit Öcala and use the Kurdish language in the trials. However, three Kurdish activists were killed in Paris in a dark operation and the situation was complicated. On 13 March, however, the PKK released the eight Turks who were kidnapped to promote peace talks on the island.
Since the PKK took up arms in 1984, 45,000 people have died and thousands of Kurdish prisoners are now being held in Turkish jails.