A Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) flag February 5, 2018 in Rome, Italy. Photo: AFP
DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey Kurdistan,— Kurdish hunger strikes are set to continue in Turkey’s prisons and internationally as part of a struggle by the “whole of humanity” against the continued isolation of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan.
A statement from the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), released the day after Ocalan called for a resumption of peace talks by the Turkish state, said: “The isolation hasn’t ended and the demands of the resistance haven’t been met.”
The KCK group, an umbrella organisation that includes the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Syria’s Democratic Union Party, warned that the recent lawyers’ visit to Ocalan was “planned only to ease the domestic and foreign pressure created by the resistance to break the isolation.”
Last week, PKK leader Ocalan was allowed to meet with his lawyers at the Imrali island prison for the first time in nearly nine years.
“The fact that they were not allowed to take notes during the meeting, the other prisoners were not allowed to see them and that the hunger strikers’ demand to have Leader Apo working and living free hasn’t been met show that this meeting was a one-off event that the government hopes to release public pressure with,” the KCK stated, using Ocalan’s Kurdish nickname of Apo, as he is affectionately known by some followers.
The government permitted the visit “to ease the domestic and foreign pressure created by the resistance to break the isolation,” claimed the KCK, “because this resistance is relevant to all Kurdish people and forces of democracy.”
It further claimed the visit by Ocalan’s brothers or his lawyers doesn’t mean the end of isolation.
“The demands of the resistance haven’t been met” and “the hunger strikers have announced that they will continue their resistance with determination,” the KCK stated.
The Kurdish umbrella group asked for people across the world to continue to support the hunger strikers.
“We are calling on the Kurdish people, forces of democracy and all foreign and domestic public to support the resistance’s decision and to increase the struggle to break the isolation,” the KCK stated.
It was seen as a significant victory for the hunger strike campaign, which is believed to involve at least 7,000 people and politicians.
At least eight people have killed themselves over the issue, according to the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party HDP.
However, sources told the Morning Star that the concession on the lawyers is also linked to secret talks between Turkish intelligence service MIT and the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), northern Syria.
Ankara is seeking a deal with the YPG, but the effort is unlikely to come to fruition while Turkish forces occupy Afrin and the isolation of Mr Ocalan continues.
In a statement read at an Istanbul press conference on Monday, the PKK leader called for the resumption of peace talks that were arbitrarily halted by the Turkish government in 2015 and an end to hunger strikes.
He insisted that violence would not solve the region’s problems, echoing the message that the hunger strikers have been trying to convey to the public.
Ocalan called on the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syrian Kurdistan to pursue solutions in Syria other than through conflict.
This stance was also backed by People’s Democratic Party (HDP) MP Mrs. Leyla Guven, who initiated the hunger strike campaign last November.
She was joined by HDP parliamentarians Dersim Dag, Murat Sarisac and Tayip Temel, who are also on indefinite hunger strike. In a joint statement, they said: “Our resistance continues with determination.”
The Kurds see Ocalan, called “leader of the Kurdish people”, as a living symbol of the Kurdish cause in Turkey.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
Ocalan, who was arrested 20 years ago, is serving a life sentence on Imrali island, close to Istanbul. Ocalan was caught in Kenya outside the Greek embassy in Nairobi on February 15, 1999 by Turkish secret service agents after attempting to seek asylum in Europe.
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