Imprisoned Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Öcalan called in a message published on Tuesday for all parties to the peace process in Turkey to make genuine efforts to ensure it succeeds.
Öcalan, the founder of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), is spearheading efforts to move from a four-decade armed Kurdish rebellion against the Turkish state to a democratic political struggle for the rights of Turkey's Kurdish minority.
Since August, a cross-party parliamentary committee has been working on a legal framework for this transition to peace.
It includes deciding on the fate of Öcalan, who has been in solitary confinement since 1999, and possible security guarantees for his fighters.
"To progress to a positive phase, it is essential for everyone to act with sensitivity, seriousness, and a sense of responsibility," Öcalan wrote in the message, which was published by a delegation from the pro-Kurdish DEM party that visited him in jail on Monday.
"The basis for this must be to integrate the Kurdish question in all its dimensions into the country’s legal framework and engage in a solid transition process."
The PKK formally renounced its armed struggle against the Turkish state in May, drawing a line under four decades of conflict that had claimed some 50,000 lives on both sides.
Last month it announced it was withdrawing its last fighters in Turkey to northern Iraq, thus completing the first phase of the peace process initiated a year earlier.
The DEM, the third largest party in parliament, has called for the second phase to start, "namely the legal and political steps".
The Kurdish community is estimated to make up 20 percent of Turkey's population of 86 million.
With AFP
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