DBP co-chair: A network of struggle will be built against isolation

The isolation of Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan continues. Weekly requests by the lawyers to visit him are denied, as are the requests of his family and his guardian. The last contact with Öcalan was in 2020. There was a family visit on 3 March and a phone call on 27 April. Apart from these, there has been no news from the Kurdish people’s leader since.

Democratic Regions Party (DBP) co-chair, Keskin Bayındır, spoke with ANF about how society handled this issue and the political dimension of the isolation.

Bayındır said that the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and his own party have been holding public meetings from province to district in Kurdistan for a long time, and that the isolation issue has been on the agenda. He added that they had discussions on how to break isolation and noted that what kind of struggle method they would implement in this regard was one of the main agendas they discussed when they met with the Kurdish community.

Recalling that the Kurdish people clearly demonstrated their stance and determination against isolation at the 2021 Newroz, Bayındır continued: “The Kurdish people said at the 2021 Newroz that the main actor in the century-old Kurdish problem is Abdullah Öcalan and that they will not accept the isolation imposed on him. This gives serious responsibility to the institutions of the political movement. This issue stands at the center of our work. Because the Kurdish people no longer accept the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan. A will has emerged for the formation of a struggle network.”

Bayındır said that the aggravated isolation of Abdullah Öcalan has suffocated both Kurds and Turks with economic, political and social crises, and added: “Today, we know that the source of the chaos and crisis that Turkey finds itself in, is the isolation imposed on Mr. Öcalan. All the energy and resources of the country are being transferred to war and violence as a result of the deadlock on the Kurdish issue. That’s why, along with the Kurds, the Turkish society must show a determination to say ‘Stop’ to the isolation of Mr. Öcalan and the deadlock in the Kurdish question.”

Bayındır continued: “The important thing is to unite this line of resistance, to make it continuous and to get results. We can now see that this government, which brought itself into existence with fascist practices, is ready to disintegrate today. The important thing is to see this and advance the united struggle. This will be one of the issues that we, as DBP, will focus on most in the upcoming period.”