Ocalan Tops the Political Scene
After a long isolation since 2011 in Imrali island prison in Turkey, the lawyers’ meeting with the Kurdish political leader Abdullah Ocalan has received a considerable local and regional attention, whether because of the timing of the visit and its importance at the level of the instable political situation in Turkey or Ocalan’s addressing the Syrian file and mentioning the role of the Syrian Democratic Forces “SDF” after the defeat of the Islamic State Organization “IS” militarily.
Harmony
After the visit to the prison, Ocalan’s lawyers announced at a press conference held in Istanbul on Monday, the content of the statement published on behalf of Ocalan. Where the first paragraph of the statement highlighted the Syrian Democratic Forces , and the need to avoid military conflicts to overcome the dilemma of sectarian and ethnic strife in Syria after the defeat of “IS”. While the second paragraph referred to the importance of peaceful struggle through hunger strikes by the supporters of the Peoples’ Democratic Party “HDP”, but it does not mean that the political protest turns into operations that take the lives of the strikers. Ocalan stressed in the third paragraph on the importance of returning to peace negotiations and avoiding violence in resolving outstanding issues in the region.
The first paragraph was in line with the Syrian Democratic Forces’ speech in Syria. It reflects the importance of cultural and religious understanding in accordance with the civil rights system, which contains sectarian and ethnic contradictions, and guarantees local identities through the decentralized political system or “local democracy”, as Ocalan’s description. This vision was welcomed by the Syrian Democratic Council and the Self-Administration in north-east Syria. In addition, the leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Kobani, pointed out in his previous press meetings the importance of two pivot points that cannot be compromised in any political dialogue with the Syrian Government, The first is to guarantee the protection of the Syrian Democratic Forces as a military entity in the areas of the east of the Euphrates. secondly, to achieve a kind of local political decentralization of areas that have come out of the influence of terrorism, with constitutional guarantees within the unity of the country.
Misunderstanding
However, another sentence has created out of this paragraph, which caused public misunderstanding that “the sensitivity of the Turkish situation should be taken into account” without attaching the required details, since the statement was succinct in its paragraphs and did not give the full substance for its undeclared considerations. However, the context in which this sentence was included by Ocalan was about the openness to flexible political dialogue with opponents, including, of course, the Turkish Government.
It is clear that Mazloum Kobani in his speech at the clans meeting last week, held in the town of Ein Issa , committed to the context, where he stressed that they accept to understand the view of the Turkish Government in the condition of that Turkey’s withdrawal from Afrin, and abandon the military threats to the east of the Euphrates.
Ocalan’s call for peace and rational dialogue with the Turkish Government in the mentioned paragraph cannot be described as a kind of “political romance” or being unreal, in the contrary of what some “emotional” views that have gone in that direction, especially in light of the arduous balance game run by Erdogan’s team with Russia and the United States, and the intractable Turkish political landscape to any options leading to political détente. Moreover, The structure of the international law mechanism is daily collided with Erdogan’s tendency toward more totalitarianism. It is likely that Ocalan’s approach of “taking into account the sensitivity of the Turkish situation” is based on the background of the Turkish “phobia” of the Kurdish file in Syria and Turkey, which, according to Ocalan’s vision, requires building mutual trust based on a flexible and rational dialogue and reducing the Prevailing climate of violence.
American mediation
The US Monitor published information that the US envoy to Syria, James Jeffrey, may be behind the initiative by the Turkish state allowing the lawyers to visit Ocalan, especially that James Jeffrey faces a difficult mission of bringing about approach between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Turkey, Especially that Ambassador Jeffrey is betting on the protection of the Syrian Democratic Forces on one hand, while seeking to prevent the slide of Turkey Geopolitically under the umbrella of the Russian policy; regarding the dismantling of the partnership with the NATO in particular, and go with the Russian side in order to arrange the situation in Syria to serve the interests of Russia. If it is true that Jeffrey was able to convince the Turkish side with making Ocalan play a central role in this file, Ocalan in turn will not reject the American mediation to remove the hostility between the “SDF” and Turkey, especially that Ocalan repeatedly demanded, in previous years, from the US to be a mediator concerning the dialogue with the Turkey.
Istanbul Municipal Elections
Stressing the seriousness of these positions and data depends on a second factor, coincided with the statement made by Ocalan. Where the Higher Committee for Elections in Turkey decided to re-election the municipality of Istanbul, in which the Republican Peoples’ Party candidate Akram Imam Oglu. won, on the 23rd of March of the last year
In this context, conflicting sources said that the Peoples’ Democratic Party “HDP”, which supported the Republican People’s Party “CHP” candidate in the last elections, may adopt the strategy of boycotting for the interest of the Justice and Development Party “AKP”. However, the ” Peoples’ Democratic Party ” hastened through an official statement to deny this such a hypothesis, stressing that the party did not enter into any possible alliance with Erdogan’s party, and will maintain its previous policies of not to nominate any representative to the municipality of Istanbul.
However, the experts in the Turkish issue considered that “The peoples’ Democratic Party” may ask its electoral base to boycott the municipal elections in Istanbul on to two conditions exclusively. First, the release of detainees in the Peoples’ Democratic Party and its, headed by the former party leader Salahuddin Dmartash, as a gesture of goodwill and. The second condition depends on the ability of Erdogan and his team to take over the policy of the National Party leader Dult Bahgli, who was considered by former Turkish Foreign Minister Davut Akhmetoglu as one of the serious mistakes made by “AKP” and that turned out to lose in the municipal elections in last March.
Germany/Farhad Hami/NPA