The separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) military organization has announced that it will keep its ceasefire with Turkey in place until after Turkey’s upcoming May 14 elections.
Speaking to the PKK-linked outlet, Medya Haber television, On Sunday, Bese Hozat, co-Chairman of the PKK’s executive council, said that the elections are of historic importance to the “Turkish people” and that the PKK has decided to maintain its “inaction” until that period is over.
Reiterating that the group would still resist if attacked by Turkish security forces, Hozat declared that “We will evaluate this decision after the elections”.
The PKK – designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union – has come under heavy fire from Turkish forces in recent years, and its affiliate elements in northern Syria have been largely wiped out. border region, features in the south. – eastern Turkey has launched anti-terrorist measures and, more recently, several hideouts in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region have been targeted by Turkish airstrikes last year.
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Despite the decades-long conflict between the Turkish state and the PKK, the group announced a temporary halt to its activities and operations in February after the deadly earthquakes struck southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria on that month.
Hozat also expressed the group’s support for the decision of the pro-Kurdish Turkiye People’s Democratic Party (HDP) not to nominate a presidential candidate, amid its ongoing fight in Turkey’s Constitutional Court against conservative and nationalist attempts to shut down the party about her allegations. links to the PKK.
Instead, the HDP is supporting the leftist Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who is running as the opposition’s co-candidate in these upcoming landmark elections. The candidates that the HDP is running for parliament, however, are listed under the Green Left Alliance (YSP), in an effort to avoid the possible closure of the original party.
“The way of the HDP is important and valuable and within the scope of its principles”, said Hozat.
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