Before moving on to my interview with DEM Party Van MP Sinan Çiftyürek, let me state the following. As I have always stated, the fact that I include the views of the personalities I interview does not mean that I agree or disagree with their views. My duty is to provide unbiased and impartial information and to leave the discretion to the public.
I asked Sinan Çiftyürek, who was born in Siverek, Urfa, is originally from Adıyaman, a member of parliament for Van and also a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Kurdistan, many questions about the agenda. He answered them sincerely. He also gave many headline-making statements. I would like to thank him for his time.
“We condemn the insults against Leyla Zana”
DEM Party MP Sinan Çiftyürek stated that they condemned the insults and curses directed at Leyla Zana by Bursaspor fans, that this was an incapacity and a blind reaction, and that Bursa fans had a long history of this.
Çiftyürek said, “There is nothing they haven't done to Amedspor before. Bursaspor president Faruk Çelik stated that the incident was not true. Leyla Zana was hurt, Kurds, Turks and the whole public opinion supported Zana. If Bursaspor continues like this, they will be relegated. We want them to separate sports from politics.”.
“Barzani is one of the leaders of the Kurdish National Movement...”
I asked about the events and reactions during Masoud Barzani's visit to Cizre.
Çiftyürek said:
“Mr. Barzani's coming is a natural thing. He came from one part of Kurdistan to another part of Kurdistan, there is nothing as natural as that. We don't understand why they exaggerated the bodyguards he had with him. Turkey has been there for years with its tanks and artillery. When the consulate is there, they are traveling with Special Operations Teams. There is nothing more natural than a leader of the Kurdish National Movement traveling with national bodyguards. Barzani's messages are meaningful, he did not oppose the solution process, on the contrary he supported it.
Especially the Good Party wanted to make this a domestic political issue. But there is no bread for them here. The Kurdish political movement has risen above such pressures and entered the regional and global equation. If there is to be peace, there is nothing as natural as Southern Kurdistan being a party.”
MIT: Turkey Will Either Solve the Kurdish Problem or Fall Apart!
Sinan Çiftyürek reminded MHP leader Devletin Bahçeli's first outburst on the peace process and gave a very striking information about the MIT report.
Reminding the attack of Hamas“ Izzeeddin Al Kassam Brigades on October 7, Çiftyürek stated that Netenyahu made a statement on October 8, one day after the attack, and then Devlet Bahçeli made a statement saying ”We must strengthen our brotherhood from inside and outside":
“The October 7 attack...Izzeeddin al-Qassam Brigades have been preparing for months. Israel has intelligence on every street of tiny Gaza. Israel can assassinate the Chief of Staff in the depths of Iran, but for some reason, Israel does not know about the attack carried out by the Al-Qassam Brigades for months and thousands of people! This is not possible... It was something planned, somehow they gave way. A day later, Netenyahu made a statement on standby. He said, ‘This is our September 11th and a lot will change in the region’. The first reaction came from Iran and the second reaction came from Mr. Devlet Bahçeli... Bahçeli said, ‘We must strengthen our brotherhood from inside and outside’. Who did he mean? He meant Kurds, but without mentioning Kurds...
And why were those actions carried out?
They needed a new equation in the Middle East. This was US and British planning.
Bahçeli knows better than you or me that the Kurdish issue is in a critical situation.
Because they have the MIT report dated November 2008 and prepared by MIT Undersecretary Emre Taner.
The report calls for a peaceful democratic solution to the Kurdish issue.
And it is said; ‘Either the Kurdish issue will be solved or Turkey will fall apart.’
I am not saying this, MIT is saying this.”
“Upon my question ”Is there a bargain between İmralı, DEM and the government or not?“, Çiftyürek stated that the West and the US do not have a change of borders on their agenda at the moment; ’If they did, they would not have opposed the “Independence Referendum‘ in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2011. More precisely, they did not oppose it, they said ’it is not the time'. The plan of the US and European states is not to change the borders, but to autonomize the four parts of Kurdistan.
Turkey's fear is that ‘today the Kurds will become autonomous, I will have to take a step’, there is no way out... They say ‘OK, I will give them autonomy, no problem’, but they are calculating twenty years from now. They are worried that ‘today the global equation gives way to the autonomy of parts of Kurdistan, what if tomorrow it gives way to their independence’.
‘There is the question, ’What if a Kurdish person like Bismarck comes along and tries to unite the four parts where Kurds live?.
That's why Bahçeli and Turkey wanted to solve this problem as soon as possible, they didn't want anyone to interfere. That was the reason for Bahçeli's call to Öcalan...
Öcalan said ‘we are repeating ourselves’. He is right.
But was it only the PKK repeating itself? Wasn't the state also repeating itself? Didn't Bahçeli also say, ‘we tried every way and it didn't work’?”.
“DEM Party Will Insist on Status”
Although the government, Öcalan and the DEM Party say ‘there is no negotiation’, Sinan Çiftyürek believes that the DEM Party will insist on status.
Çiftyürek said, “Öcalan said that we don't want autonomy, federation and culturalist demands either. But it is obvious that the PKK and the DEM community will insist on a status, if they didn't, they would have taken a step forward until today. But both sides have their minds on Rojava (North of Syria), Rojava's status has been recognized as it is. Turkey also accepts this. They opened the door to civil administration and administrative autonomy, but they said there should not be a separate army and defense like Iraqi Kurdistan. But now the solution process is tied to that. Rojava is also the reason why the parliamentary commission is constantly reset and bills are not passed. They say; ‘let the problem there be solved and then we can take steps.’ That is where the Kurdish politics and the minds of Kurdish politics are...”.
Çiftyürek said, “The AK Party, MHP and the İyi Party are making it a condition that wherever the Kurds have armed forces in the Middle East, they must give them up. So that is what they want. There is no benefit in enacting a law similar to the law enacted after the Sheikh Sait rebellion. For example, they say ‘those who have committed crimes’. When you say this, no one will come and surrender. ‘You are a criminal, come and surrender, then we will put sensors on your feet for a few years...’
If the state mind does not get out of the idea of terrorism, criminals, etc. in the Kurdish issue, if it does not say I have to approach this politically, the Kurdish issue cannot be solved. At the moment, the solution of the Kurdish issue is not on the agenda, they are dealing with the consequences of the Kurdish issue. They are not taking a radical, courageous, timid approach to the elimination of the consequences.”.
“The peace process is not about the solution of the Kurdish issue, but about the elimination of the consequences of the Kurdish issue...”
On the question of how do you evaluate Bese Hozat's statement “we don't want amnesty”, Sinan Çiftyürek stated the following:
“The Kurdish issue has been going on for one hundred and seventy years. It has been going on since Mîr Bedirhan. Turkey says ‘I am an Ottoman legacy’, if it is an Ottoman legacy, this problem has existed for a hundred and seventy years. The state still does not say it will solve the Kurdish issue, the official discourse still says there is a terrorist issue. This peace process is not about solving the Kurdish issue, it is about eliminating the consequences of the Kurdish issue.”
“SDF must not disarm”
“Regarding my question ”Should the SDF disarm?", Çiftyürek made the following observations:
“If the Kurds lay down their arms, they will face massacres again. The state perceives the Kurds outside the borders as a threat, which is right from its point of view because the Kurdish issue is always a threat to them. This is a matter of how the Turkish Republic views the Kurds.
Turkey calls itself a strategic ally even when it meets with states in Africa, why aren't the Kurds a strategic ally? Turkey can be effective in the Middle East if it recognizes the Kurds and accepts their achievements and grows together, not by riding on their backs.
Why does he want the SDF to disarm? Because he does not accept the word Kurdish. Inside, there is still no word Kurdish in the reports of the commissions. Because they are afraid that it will come back...
Turkish people came from the Caucasus. Why do the people of Bursa show such racist attitudes? Because they are immigrants... Süleyman Demirel used to say, ‘It is immigrants, not Turks, who are Turkists’.
People from Central Asia and the Caucasus are more racist.
Turkey must stop seeing the Kurds as a threat. They wanted to advance by riding on the backs of the Kurds, but they failed. There is no state in Syria, there is a gang system. Is it a state established by HTS? It takes half of the country to elections and half not. Is such a thing possible? There is no system where Kurds can feel safe. Kurds have to take their own security. It is not right for the SDF to lay down arms. The day the SDF disarms, the same thing that happened to the Alawite people will happen to the Kurds. That is why it is never, ever right for the SDF to lay down arms.
Who wants the Kurds to lay down their arms? The Arabs with twenty-two states and twenty-two national armies... The Turks with seven states and seven national armies. Let the fifty million Kurds have autonomy. Let them have a defense force.”
“What do I understand from this solution process if the Kurdish will not have a language, will not have a presence in the Constitution?”
DEM Deputy Sinan Çiftyürek said that they object to the article in the Constitution stating that “Everyone who belongs to the State of the Republic of Turkey is a Turk” and that this article should be changed.
Çiftyürek summarized: “If Article 66 of the Constitution will not be changed, if everyone bound by citizenship is a Turk, if Article 42, education in mother tongue, mother tongue other than Turkish and mother tongue will not be official, then all these discussions are futile. What are you discussing?
If the Kurdish will not have a language and will not have a presence in the Constitution, what do I understand from this solution process? A solution cannot be produced without changing these two articles.
If Turkishness is not an ethnic identity but a supreme identity and includes everyone, then the statement that everyone who belongs to the Republic of Turkey is a Turk is obviously based on an ethnic identity. Let's say it is a cultural identity, why do you recognize the Turks in Central Asia and see them as brothers and sisters, then why don't you see the Kurds in the Kurdistan Federal State (Northern Iraqi Kurdistan) as brothers and sisters? Why did you oppose the independence referendum? The root of these are lies.”
“Demirtaş's release depends entirely on domestic politics, not on the law”
“Upon my question ”Why is Demirtaş not being released?" Çiftyürek made the following striking observations.
“The bottom line about Demirtaş is that HDP members are the ones who died and HDP members are the ones on trial. If 52 people died, 37 of them were HDP members. Did HDP members kill HDP members? Moreover, HDP members are also inside. They are the ones who died and they are the ones on trial.
Demirtaş is actually in prison for two reasons, his ‘we will not make you president’ speech. Also, if the HDP had made a move when the Ak Parti was in the minority in forming a government, it would have become a ruling partner with the Ak Parti instead of the MHP. I think it would have been right too. When that didn't happen, Erdoğan threw bridges and they still maintain that attitude.
They are also worried that if Demirtaş is released, there will be a revival in domestic politics. Demirtaş's release depends entirely on domestic politics, not on the law. If there was a law, Demirtaş should not be in jail.”
Especially the Iyi Parti and some CHP nationalists continue to claim that the “peace process” is a continuation of the BOP, what do you think?
The reading is fundamentally wrong. The BOP project is long gone. America is intervening directly in the Middle East. There is America in Syria. There is Saudi Arabia in the economy. To see the resolution process as a continuation of the BOP is preposterous. Bahçeli himself started this process. The PKK front was already ready for it. Öcalan has been in favor of laying down arms since the 1990s. The BOP was something else, it was a project covering North Africa. The Arab Spring had something to do with it, but they realized that it burned their hands. Finally, they saw the Ikhwani Muslim and gave up...
“Iran and Turkey are prisons of beliefs and peoples”
The non-state Kurds, the Kurdistan Federal Structure (Northern Iraqi Kurdistan) is a garden of peoples and beliefs... Although they are not a state, they have made a garden of peoples and beliefs. Turkey's fear is that the Kurds are coming with new references. It is a dynamic society, a society of 60 million people.
Kurds should exist as a nation in the Constitution.
Two, there should be education in mother tongue.
Kurds must have a status in Turkey. Not without a status.
When I say status, I am talking about a federative system of administrative autonomy. Half the world is already governed by a federal system.
The federal system does not lead to disintegration, on the contrary, it leads to a unifying life. Yes to living together, but on equal terms... Atatürk did it before, but he didn't continue.”
“People with Statutory Decrees Suffered Great Persecution”
DEM Deputy Çiftyürek also said the following about the people with emergency decrees:
“As the Kurdistan Democratic Party, we say that this is an oppression, a great social destruction, a great social terror. This is such a social terror that you don't just fire people, you tell them that they can't work in any insured job. Is there a greater social terror than this? DEM has repeatedly emphasized this and made proposals. This must be eliminated as soon as possible.”