Meral Daniş Beştaş: Ignoring leader  Ocalan’s role in Kurdish peace process impossible

Member of the Parliamentary Committee on National Solidarity, Fraternity, and Democracy, Meral Daniş Beştaş, addressed the committee’s stance on the “right to hope,” stating:“It is inconceivable for the committee dealing with the Kurdish question not to take into account the conditions of Mr. Abdullah Ocalan.”

The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers had granted Turkey a one-year deadline in September 2024 to implement the “right to hope” for leader Abdullah Ocalan, Hayati Kaytan, Emin Gurban, and Civan Boltan.

However, Turkey failed to comply. The committee revisited the matter at its meeting between 15–17 September, and on 18 September issued a statement urging Turkey to draw on the experiences of other member states with similar mechanisms. It called for the submission of a progress report by June 2026 at the latest.

The committee also pointed to the Kurdish peace process and democratization in Turkey, noting that the process should benefit from the “Committee on National Solidarity, Fraternity, and Democracy.” However, the Turkish parliamentary committee has so far failed to put either the “right to hope” or a meeting with Mr. Ocalan on its agenda.

 Meanwhile, on 30 October, committee chair Numan Kurtulmuş declared that no legal steps would be taken until the Syrian Democratic Forces handed over their weapons to a transitional government in Damascus.

Speaking in response, Meral Daniş Beştaş, MP for the Party of Equality and Democracy of Peoples, criticized both the committee’s stance on the “right to hope” and Kurtulmuş’s remarks.

“There are binding rulings from the European Court of Human Rights and decisions from the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on this matter. This right must be brought into the legal framework and these rulings implemented immediately under Turkish law. Yet, the government is not complying with either the Constitution or the laws of Turkey.

The committee must act more swiftly and take further decisions. Meetings with various figures and groups are scheduled in the coming weeks, but after that the committee must move on to legal proposals and directives. The ‘right to hope’ remains one of the most important issues, and disregarding Mr. Ocalan’s conditions in resolving the Kurdish question is unacceptable.”

Beştaş further stressed leader Ocalan’s central role:“Mr. Ocalan is the principal political actor in this permanent process and must be able to act freely under appropriate conditions. His ongoing isolation constitutes torture, and the committee must take this into account.”

On another point, she criticized Kurtulmuş’s remarks regarding the disarmament of the Syrian Democratic Forces, calling them “regrettable”: “As the head of the committee dealing with the process in Turkey, neither he nor we can decide for other parties and forces. Those actors in Syria will draw their own roadmap. Making such decisions from here serves no one and only undermines hopes for a solution.”

a.k

ANHA