The draft text prepared by Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan with the aim of ensuring the evolving of ongoing talks for the resolution of the Kurdish question into negotiations has been discussed at a meeting with deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan.

HDP Imralı delegation member Sırrı Süreyya Önder spoke after the meeting, saying that they had discussed the draft and that after one or two subsequent meetings with the government they would go as a delegation to Kandil. 

The enlarged Imralı delegation, that visited Abdullah Öcalan on 29 November, today held a meeting with deputy PM Yalçın Akdoğan. The delegation consisted of HDP Group chairs İdris Baluken and Pervin Buldan, Istanbul MP Sırrı Süreyya Önder and DTK Co-President Hatip Dicle. 

Following the meeting, which lasted approximately 2 hours, delegation spokesperson Sırrı Süreyya Önder said they had discussed the draft text, adding: "We discussed certain proposals and topics regarding which agreement has not been reached. After another meeting we will go to Kandil for a meeting with KCK officials. We made reciprocal evaluations of the draft. We will assess the stage reached in our party organs and then hold another meeting with Mr Yalçın Akdoğan.”   

Önder responded to questions asking whether the government had opposed certain points in the draft, saying: "We are not at that stage. We are not going through the draft text point by point. Our general approach is to fix a timetable for the process. After consulting our co-Presidents and official bodies and assessing the stage reached we will meet the government once or twice more within the next 2 days, then visit Kandil.”

Responding to a question regarding whether the process was on course despite the security package being debated in parliament, Önder said: “Perhaps we are discussing this,” adding that there was no problem as regards clarity.

In answer to another question, Önder said: "There is no problem as regards a secretariat and a monitoring body.” Önder added that the size of the delegation would increase as they were aiming for a lasting peace.

Asked whether the government was using delaying tactics, he replied that the objective attitude was not a delaying one. He added that the period of martial law and rule by anti-democratic measures in Turkey had passed. He said he would go with Leyla Zana to Kandil. 

Önder criticised the government’s stance on public order, saying they did not agree, “but then you do not hold talks if you agree on everything,” her added. He stressed that problems deriving from the exercise of freedoms required a broadening of these freedoms, not restrictions. “The government sees things as a matter of law and order, whereas we see historical realities in the background,” he added.

Önder also criticised parliament for refusing to accept the wording ‘Kurdistan region’ in the budget report after the government had not objected to it.