Brussels, 02/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Saturday 28 February, the European Union hailed the announcement the same day of Abdullah Ocalan's call to the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers' Pary) to hold an extraordinary congress to decide to lay down arms in the spring. The spokesperson for High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini believed, as did Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Yalçin Akdogan, that this was “a positive step forward in the peace process”.
In a message given at a joint press conference by the Turkish government and pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP), the imprisoned PKK leader called on his party to “organise an extraordinary congress to decide to lay down arms in the spring”. He stated that this was a “historic call to replace armed fighting with politics”. In his message, Ocalan spoke of ten measures needed for sustainable peace in Turkey - including the writing of a new constitution. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the call as “very, very important', while stating that the previous calls to disarmament had been failures.
“We hope that all parties will seize the opportunity to make decisive progress towards reconciliation and democratisation”, said Mogherini's spokesperson, adding that “as ever”, the EU gave the strongest political support to this process and repeated its readiness to provide practical help, including through pre-accession funding. (Camille-Cerise Gessant)