President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that he does not approve of the simultaneous statements made by Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan, Interior Minister Efkan Ala and HDP Deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder at the Office of the Prime Minister at Dolmabahçe, Istanbul regarding the reconciliation declaration, which consisted of ten points. He argued that the content of the declaration was a far cry from democracy.
Speaking to the press on his way back from the Ukraine trip on Sunday, Erdoğan said that he opposes the declaration, the same way he has opposed the establishment of a monitoring committee for the reconciliation process. "Which part of this text can I approve under the name of democracy?" the president said.
Erdoğan reiterated that he is against the establishment of a monitoring committee. He noted that there is no convention that necessitates the discussion of each and every single issue at all times between the government and the president, implying that the government had proceeded with the aforementioned issues without reaching a mutual understanding with him.
The reconciliation process was initiated by the AK Party government and began when a cease-fire was signed between the government and the PKK in 2013. This was followed by a series of democratic reforms to improve the rights of Turkey's Kurdish population. It is reported that over 50 percent of people in the country are in favor of the initiative.
Deputy PM Yalçın Akdoğan and members from the Peoples' Democratic Party have held talks to discuss and outline the steps that need to be taken. The HDP's reconciliation committee pays visits to PKK's imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan in İmralı Island and have brought Öcalan's disarmament message in their last visit, which was read out loud at the Nevruz celebrations on Saturday.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has consistently underlined that the reconciliation process, which was launched by the ruling AK Party to end the decades-long conflict between the state and the PKK, is not a matter of "give and take" and that Turkey is solely in pursuit of ending the violence and making up for the rights that were once taken from the people residing in the region.
