The Republican People’s Party (CHP) submitted its report to the parliamentary commission established as part of the Peace and Democratic Society process. In the 53-page document, the CHP largely focused on the rule of law, judicial independence, freedom of expression, and violations of fundamental rights. However, the report offered almost no concrete proposals regarding the structural dimensions of the Kurdish question, the new peace architecture, or democratic integration, despite these issues being central to the commission’s mandate.
Key topics related to the post-disarmament period, including political participation, transitional justice, and democratic integration, were also absent from the report. The CHP’s approach drew attention as Murat Emir, the party’s representative on the commission, publicly praised the document. In this respect, the CHP appeared to set aside the core substance of the democratic integration laws that the commission was primarily expected to address.
The Kurdish question is present in the CHP report, but…
The report includes demands such as ending the practice of appointing state trustees, ensuring freedom of expression, strengthening local administrations, and repealing certain provisions of the Anti-Terror Law. However, the sidelining of the Kurdish question constitutes its central deadlock. The historical and structural dimensions of the issue, including collective rights, mother tongue, and local democracy, are not framed within a clear political perspective. In this form, the report adopts an approach that renders the specific nature of the Kurdish question largely invisible.
The report frequently emphasises the “rule of law” and “equal citizenship,” yet it offers no critique of the security-oriented paradigm that has shaped the state’s approach to the Kurdish question. The concept of “counter-terrorism” is preserved without scrutiny, and no will is articulated to confront the political and legal consequences of the period of armed conflict.
The CHP report is distant from a peace and negotiation perspective
The CHP report presents a broad list of reforms, ranging from the implementation of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and Constitutional Court of Turkey decisions to press freedom, detention practices, and the appointment of state trustees. However, these proposals are framed primarily as a critique of the existing authoritarian system rather than through a peace and negotiation perspective required by the new process. The report offers no mechanisms aimed at the socialisation of peace.
By refraining from visiting Imralı, the CHP has positioned itself against the peace process, a stance that is also reflected in the report. The document not only avoids addressing the “right to hope” but explicitly notes its absence. While the report submitted to parliament contains criticism and limited reform proposals in the field of democratisation, it falls short of responding to the resolution of the Kurdish question and the needs of the new process. Yet one of the most crucial headings of the report to be prepared by the commission concerns democratic integration laws. By fundamentally rejecting this issue, the CHP is rapidly drifting into an oppositional stance toward the process itself.