KCK Executive Committee Co-chair Cemil Bayık responded to the threats of the Turkish president and prime minister against Kurdish people.

Bayık mentioned peace efforts by Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan and said all those efforts were negated by Erdoğan.

Cemil Bayık’s article titled “The struggle will lift the isolation and bring the solution” published in Azadiya Welat and Yeni Özgür Politika newspapers, translated from Turkish by ANF English service, is as follows:

"Tayyip Erdoğan and Ahmet Davutoğlu are deceiving the peoples of Turkey. It is clear how the process called the “resolution process” ended. As a result of years of efforts, a declaration of democratisation and a resolution to the Kurdish question was presented to the public in Dolmabahçe. Who denied this and said the table didn’t exist? Who said those messages were legitimizing İmralı for Leader Apo’s message of democratisation and solution in Newroz 2015? Who has kept the Leader of Kurdish People under strict isolation since April 5, 2015? Those were the first steps of war and the sacking of the democratic political resolution process. When they lost the election on June 7, they shifted into an all-out war on July 24. November 1 election was just a political cover for this war. November 1 election was like the election of 1946 when the CHP won by using all the means of the state. In short, the discourse that “PKK broke the ceasefire and started the war” is a big lie. The Dolmabahçe Consensus was refused and Leader Apo was isolated as per the verdict of war reached in the National Security Council on October 30, 2014 and the decision for war was put into practice after the democratic forces came out strong after the June 7 election.

Erdoğan and Davutoğlu keep saying “it will definitevely be ended” - like it has been said for the last 40 years. The alliance of AKP and MHP says they will keep this war going until not a single guerrilla is left alive. They are saying what all politicians without a policy for solution say, they are doing all that those politicians did. This discourse and this war will continue until a mindset and a policy for a solution for the Kurdish matter emerges.

AKP and MHP are now implementing the policies that the enemies of Turkey want. They fall into the trap of keeping Turkey and the Kurds in a constant warring state. This is the situation those with no policy for solution will find themselves in. Only those with a policy on resolution for the Kurdish matter will be behaving in favor of the peoples of Turkey.

No force can eliminate the Kurdish Freedom Movement. These are words of psychological warfare uttered to delude the peoples of Turkey. They are, without a doubt, using all their means to end the Kurdish Freedom Movement. But these are doomed to failure, as others have been for the last 40 years. The current situation is even more unfruitful than the past.

PKK is not a movement of “40 days”, or an artificial organisation backed by Turkey or others like ISIS. It is the party with deep, 43 year old roots and the party with the most political experience in the Middle East. Tayyip Erdoğan, Devlet Bahçeli and Ahmet Davutoğlu confuse the PKK with artificial or hyped up organisations. But the PKK has reached this day by fighting tooth and claw. It has a sacrificial strength that insists on “either freedom, or freedom”. The Kurdish people are also no longer the Kurdish people of yesteryear. This folk has also matured in the 40 year long war. In this sense, Tayyip Erdoğan is fooling himself with the discourse of a special war. Of course the toll is on the people. Without a doubt, the Kurdish people are also suffering; but Turkey is the biggest loser by far in the process where the Middle East is being reshaped. Leader Apo has tried to make all the peoples of Turkey and the country itself win, with the Manifesto of 2013 and the Dolmabahçe Consensus. However, Tayyip Erdoğan has dismissed this approach and this effort, and he has chosen war instead. This war will continue until the policies of Tayyip Erdoğan and his allies fail. A war has been imposed on the Kurdish people. The Freedom Movement will naturally respond to this war with a great and historic resistance.

There is no doubt that Leader Apo is the most reasonable addressee for a solution. It is not possible to solve the Kurdish matter outside of the approach and projects of the Kurdish People’s Leader who takes the democratisation of Turkey and the solution to the Kurdish matter as intertwined matters. His aim is to solve the Kurdish question by strengthening the local democracy. But it is not possible to come up with a solution to the matter just by telling people to go and speak to İmralı. Leader Apo has displayed the most reasonable approach. This is why Leader Apo can play his role if there is a project for solution. Leader Apo has nothing to do until the mindset and policies of Erdoğan and Davutoğlu change. Leader Apo has no magic wand in his hands. It is necessary to develop the struggle in order to send the AKP government to chief negotiation Leader Apo. Such a struggle is necessary in order for Leader Apo to put his strength for a solution to practice. It is necessary to break the isolation that has gone on for more than a year. There is a direct connection between ending the isolation and solving the Kurdish matter. If the policies of solution-less and war are made irrelevant by the struggle, then the isolation will end and Leader Apo can play his part.

Leader Apo has stated the nature of the process with the Dolmabahçe Consensus and by telling the HDP delegation that they should come for a solution, they need not come otherwise, or that it will be a meeting for just a conversation if they come. Therefore, if the visit won’t be just for some conversation, it is necessary to uplift the struggle and bring the Turkish state to the point of a policy for solution."