Ocalan calls Turkey-PKK conflict a blind war
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – Imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader, Abdullah Ocalan, reportedly called the conflict between the group he founded and Turkey's troops "a blind war."
Turkish authorities allowed Mehmet Ocalan to visit his jailed brother and Kurdish leader for the first time in two years. Abdullah Ocalan is serving a life sentence in the Imrali Island prison in northwestern Turkey.
Mehmet Ocalan spoke in front of hundreds of people, among them the 50 hunger-strikers, who gathered in the headquarters of the Congress for a Democratic Society (KCD), an umbrella organization of civic Kurdish groups in the city of Diyarbakir.
The PKK leader blamed the Turkish State for the breakdown of the two-year peace negotiations and ceasefire that lasted between March 2013 and August 2015.
"If the [Turkish] State was sincere, this many people would not have to die. If the State gives a signal [of peace], this problem will not persist," Ocalan was quoted by his brother.
Ocalan was last visited by a delegation of Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in April 2015.
"Let the State send two of its men. We can solve this problem in six months. This is a blind war. Let the bloodshed and tears stop," the Kurdish leader was quoted calling for a renewal of peace negotiations.
HDP politicians who make up the third largest block at the Turkish Parliament, as well as the PKK's military leadership based in Kurdish mountains, have been voicing strong concerns about Ocalan's life and health after an isolation that started in 1999.
In the meantime, hunger-strikers who were demanding information on Ocalan's life and health announced an end to their strike that began on September 5 in Diyarbakir.
Editing by Ava Homa
(Reporting by Ari Khalidi)