Turkey’s jailed Ocalan reportedly tells Kurds to stay neutral in Istanbul election
Thousands of supporters of Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, gather to celebrate the Kurdish New Year and to attend a campaign rally in Istanbul, Turkey, March 24, 2019. Photo: AP
ANKARA,— Turkey’s imprisoned Kurdish leader and the founder of Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, called on supporters of a pro-Kurdish political party to remain politically neutral ahead of a local election in Istanbul this weekend, suggesting they should abstain, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Turkey is holding a re-run of the mayoral election this Sunday, initially held on March 31st, following an appeal by President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, which had long-controlled the city but lost the vote to the main opposition.
The Kurdish party HDP’s former leader Selahattin Demirtas, who is imprisoned on terror charges and to alleged links to Kurdish PKK militants, had declared support for the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) candidate Ekrem Imamoglu, earlier this week.
“The democratic alliance approach of the HDP should not be a part of current election discussions. The importance of the democratic alliance is that it (…) insists in its neutral position,” Ocalan was quoted as saying by academic Ali Kemal Ozcan, who visited him on Thursday.
Under a so-called “democratic alliance” the HDP has asked its supporters to vote for the main opposition in local elections in towns in the west of Turkey, including in the past in Istanbul and the capital Ankara, where it has not fielded its own candidates.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974, and has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
Kurds see Ocalan, called “leader of the Kurdish people” by his followers as a living symbol of the Kurdish cause in Turkey.
Ocalan was caught in February 1999 in Kenya and jailed several months later after he was found guilty of treason, separatism and murder.
Despite the almost complete isolation, Ocalan is still a key figure of the Kurdish insurgency and the movement generally in the region.
Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Reuters
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