Talabani suggests steps to solve Kurdish issue in Turkey

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The President, Jalal Talabani, stressed the need to start a dialogue between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Talabani emphasized that the only person that Turkey can start a dialogue with is Abdullah Ocalan Leader of the PKK.

Talabani stressed, during an interview with the Turkish Milliyet newspaper, “Reaching to a solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey requires some steps, among them: the need to improve the situation of Ocalan in the prison or put him under a house arrest, the declaration of a cease-fire from both sides (Turkey and the PKK) and the declaration of a general amnesty.”

Talabani said “When he met Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the General Assembly meeting of the United Nations, he told him that he should carry out such steps to resolve the Kurdish issue, but Erdogan clarified that the issuance of a general amnesty law is not easy, and that public opinion is not ready for such a step.”

It is worth mentioning that Ocalan was arrested by Turkish security forces in Nairobi and taken to Turkey, where he was sentenced to death under Article 125 of the Turkish Penal Code, which concerns the formation of armed gangs. The sentence was commuted to aggravated life imprisonment when Turkey abolished the death penalty in support of its bid to be admitted to membership in the EU. From 1999 until 2009, he was the sole prisoner on the Imrali island.