Turkish PM: No dialogue with Ocalan

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (K24) - Turkey's Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu told a Turkish television station on Wednesday that his government rules out any dialogue with the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan.

In an interview with the NTV news channel, Davutoglu said that there used to be a "mechanism [of dialogue]" during the now-collapsed peace talks between his government and Ocalan. "[But] why should we continue holding communication [with him], if it is for no good?," Davutoglu asked.

Davutoglu was answering a question whether Turkey was thinking of "calling on Ocalan," as a means of decreasing the ongoing violence and bloodshed in clashes between Turkish forces and Kurdish fighters in mostly urban areas in the country's Kurdish southeast. The influential PKK leader is serving a life sentence in a supermax prison on Imrali Island in the Sea of Marmara, near Istanbul.

A largely-observed ceasefire and negotiations to find a political solution the decades-old Turkish - Kurdish conflict lasted for more than two years until mid-2015 when Turkey started an aerial bombing campaign against the PKK targets in Iraqi Kurdistan in response to the killing of its two police officers in the Kurdish-majority province of Urfa in late July.

The Turkish premier also revealed that the last message delivered from Ocalan to the PKK leadership based in the Qandil mountains on the Iraq-Iran border was in March 2015, "It was a call [on PKK] to hold a conference on disarmament," Davutoglu said.

Hover, Davutoglu accused the popular co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas of "ruining" plans to hold the conference with provocative statements, without specifying further.

Davutoglu stated that Turkey's priority was "to clear the terror organisation” [PKK] from urban areas, including the curfew-imposed central Diyarbakir district of Sur as well as the beleaguered towns of Cizre and Silopi, where Turkish Army and PKK fighters have been locked in weeks-long clashes.

"We believe without [routing the PKK], any contact [with Ocalan] will not be beneficial. Those trenches and barricades must be removed," he added.

In another part of the interview, Turkey's premier called HDP politicians' remarks on Kurdish autonomy a crime and said, "nobody has the right to do so under the armour [immunity from prosecution] of membership to the parliament." He stated that his Justice and Development Party's (AKP) stance toward the latest probes into Kurdish politicians would be in accordance with "the legal results."

When demanded by a court, a simple majority of MPs (276 votes) can strip another MP of parliamentary immunity. With 317 seats, AKP is the largest bloc in the Turkish Assembly.

Davutoglu denied allegations that Turkish forces were killing civilians in Kurdish towns in Mardin and Sirnak provinces. He claimed no civilians have been killed by the army and accused the PKK of fabrications.