A growing mistrust between pro-Kurdish political parties and the government -- the two sides involved in the ongoing settlement process to resolve Turkey's longstanding Kurdish issue -- has become more visible in the wake of the Kobani protests, with both parties recently using a more accusative tone against each other.

The government and the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) have been exchanging accusations on the current status of the settlement process, which was launched by the government in late 2012 to solve the longstanding Kurdish issue by holding talks with the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan. The parties blame each other for failing to take the necessary steps in their part of the process.

In the latest round of the ongoing row, HDP Şırnak deputy Hasip Kaplan claimed that the judiciary is under pressure from the government to close down the HDP, and that a recent meeting of Turkey's top security body, the National Security Council (MGK), had targeted the party on Tuesday.

The latest MGK meeting ended with a statement saying that the gathering had tackled “illegal parallel structures that operate under the guise of legal structures,” which it said posed a threat to national security.

However, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ responded to claims that the government is working on a plan to close down the HDP by saying that the "era of closing down parties is now over."

Bozdağ said the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) received no request for a meeting from HDP officials concerning the claims. "The AK Party is against closing down parties as a principle," Bozdağ said, adding that Turkey has a long history of closing down political parties, and this will no longer be possible in the country.

The row casts more doubt on the future of the settlement process, which the government says will eventually end the country's terrorism problem.

Commenting on the current situation of the talks between the government and PKK leader Öcalan, HDP Co-chairman Selahattin Demirtaş acknowledged that the talks have come to a halt. “The talks have stopped. This is an extraordinary situation,” Demirtaş said on Wednesday. However, Demirtaş added, the process cannot end unless one of the parties, either the government or Öcalan, makes an announcement to that effect.

HDP parliamentary group deputy chairwoman Pervin Buldan acknowledged that there is a weakened dialogue with the government in terms of the talks in the ongoing peace process, based on the exchange of accusations between the two sides, and claimed that the road to peace is under Öcalan's control.

Arguing that having meetings with Öcalan in the course of the process has huge importance, Buldan went on to say, "If the process is drawn out more and more, it might be exposed to all kind of provocations."

In the government's view, the PKK is responsible for the recent standstill. A columnist from the pro-government Yeni Şafak daily, Abdulkadir Selvi, said Interior Minister Efkan Ala told him that the government and the PKK reached an agreement during negotiations in Oslo, but the PKK violated this agreement.

“Both parties agreed to ignore the problems. Two years have passed and the problems have grown bigger. Both parties did not trust each other, and they can no longer overlook the problems after the Kobani protests,” Sedat Laçiner, a professor of international relations and the rector of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (ÇOMÜ), told Today's Zaman while evaluating the process' current situation. He said the settlement process was not intended to create a permanent resolution to Turkey's longstanding Kurdish question, but rather its purpose is to postpone the problems and gain time.

Referring to recent claims voiced by Selvi about Minister Ala's remarks on the Oslo negotiations between the PKK and the government, Laçiner said speculations on the meetings were already put forward in various media reports. He added that Ala's reported remarks are a clear confession of the existence of negotiations with the PKK. He said: “The government is trying to make an agreement with the PKK. However, such organizations [like the PKK] do not regard such agreements as possible. The settlement process is being used [by such organizations] to gain time."

The ongoing talks between Öcalan and Turkish government officials are the continuation of a 2010 negotiation that began in Oslo but was interrupted in 2011 by a deadly PKK attack. The process resumed when Öcalan intervened in a collective hunger strike held by Kurdish inmates in November 2012 and asked the protesters to stop and they obeyed him. Öcalan claims the PKK does not want a homeland independent from Turkey, but would like more freedoms for Kurds and a degree of autonomy for the Kurdish-dominated Southeast of the country.

‘Both parties responsible'



Aykan Erdemir, a deputy from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), told Today's Zaman that recent contradictory remarks regarding the settlement process are not at all surprising. He further said this is because both parties have failed to take effective steps when it comes to the process.

Erdemir also said similar talks around the world are conducted on a more participatory and transparent basis, but this one was conducted in a secretive manner and with imposing and threatening language from the AK Party. Thus, he explained, the fact that the process has failed to bear successful results is not very surprising.

“Sadly...the process conducted by Turkey will be taught in universities as a negative example [of such peace processes in the world] through statements [like] ‘[You can] never resolve social problems or conflicts in this way.' If [the processes in] Northern Ireland and Colombia are provided as positive examples, the unsuccessful process conducted by the AK Party will be referred to as an unsuccessful one,” Erdemir said.

Also speaking with Today's Zaman, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Deputy Chairman Şefkat Çetin accused the government of realizing that the settlement process had already gone off the rails, pointing to the PKK's increasing influence in the Southeast.

Çetin said PKK members are no longer active just in the mountains and are also operating inside Turkish cities. He accused the government of not taking the necessary measures against the increasing activism in the PKK in southeastern Turkey for the sake of the settlement process.

Referring to the Kobani protests that took place in early October, Çetin said, “Although the PKK conducted a rehearsal for a rebellion on Oct. 6-7, no concerns for the territorial integrity of our country have yet been expressed by the AK Party.”

Ahmet Türk, co-chairman of the HDP and mayor of Mardin argued that the settlement process has come to a deadlock following the government's attitude, which is exemplified by it creating an analogy between the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), considering both of them to be terrorist organizations.

CHP İstanbul deputy İhsan Özkes said on Thursday that the CHP is against the closing down of a political party whatever the reasons are, adding: “All experiences that we have had so far proved that closing down a party does not block their ideas being spread. The right to finish a party's activities belongs to the people, not the courts. If the people do not support a political party, then it cannot survive.”

Today's Zaman