Chairpersons of the Confederation of Public Workers' Unions (KESK) and unions affiliated to it held a press conference in Ankara to share their opinions about the process of talks aimed at a democratic and peaceful solution to the Kurdish question.

Speaking here, KESK President Lami Özgen said the silence of arms has been achieved thanks to the struggle made so far by the Kurdish people and movements for peace, labor and democracy. Özgen pointed out that the process could succeed thanks to the struggle by labor and democracy powers.

Özgen criticized the AKP government for being in search of a civil dictatorship aimed at supporting its neoliberal, religiously conservative and repressive regime in line with the new tendencies of imperialism. Özgen pointed out that AKP has yet taken no step in terms of democracy, rights and freedoms intended to be achieved in the ongoing process of talks, thus making it more difficult to come up with a solution to the Kurdish question.  

Özgen said it was the responsibility of everyone fighting for peace to strengthen the ground for dialogue aimed at the silence of arms, ending of the bloodshed and establishment of a dignified and lasting peace. “The democratic and peaceful solution of the Kurdish question is not independent from the fight for Turkey's democratization”, he underlined and said that it was time to strengthen the calls for peace in order to enhance the joint struggle of peoples and to achieve freedom for all identities and groups in the country.

Maintaining its stance against the repressive and authoritarian practices of the AKP government, KESK will continue fighting for the silence of arms and demanding  peace and freedom, Özgen said and listed the following major steps which -he said- urgently needed to be taken in the ongoing process;

* AKP should start using a peaceful language.

* Talks [with Öcalan] should continue and each of its phases should be shared with the public.

* All circles of the society should ensure democratic participation in the process.

* Political prisoners should be released.

* Necessary steps should be taken to face the past and truths and to ensure the disclosure of violations of human rights, no matter whom they were committed by, to be able to heal the trauma the war in the country has caused.

* The Turkish Parliament should take part in the process to make necessary legal arrangements.

* The law on political parties and elections should undergo a democratic change, the election threshold should be removed, justice and equality should be ensured in the representation of peoples in the parliament.

* The demand for mother-tongue language should be fulfilled, freedoms of thought and expression should be guaranteed, political bans should be removed all together.

* Each citizen in Turkey, regardless of which ethnic origin, language, religion, gender identity and tendency they are, should be enabled to have equal rights on the basis of constitutional citizenship and to keep their cultures alive.

* Legal arrangements should be reviewed to make sure that people who were forced to migrate from their villages can turn back to their territory or lead a life in proper conditions in the territories they migrated to.

* The village guard system should be abolished.

* Principles of administration should be improved on the basis of direct democracy in order to serve for not only the solution of the Kurdish question but also for Turkey's democratization. Administrative and political arrangements should be made with an aim to give local councils of people administrative authorities in the scope of the assignation of central authority to local administrations.

* Public funding should be transferred to the Kurdish region to remove the economic inequality, poverty and unemployment here and a land reform should take place.