Your Commission, Should You Choose To Accept It

Issue #267

Summertime means heat and heated debates about picnic etiquette. Especially on the plague of sunflower seed shells.

And still, Düzce Municipality managed to address the issue with a dancing street sweeper in the best public service announcement you’re going to see this year.

In this week’s recap:

• Parliamentary peace commission talks ongoing

• Sweida tests Turkey-Syria ties, peace process

• Imamoğlu shares campaign vision from jail

• Domestic and diplomatic wraps

• Bulgaria seizes MHP-branded cocaine

Also from us this week:

• Meltem Akyol on how protected olive groves were opened to mining

• Nareg Seferian details the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks on Recap radio

• Tomorrow: Emily Rice Johnson covers the rate decision in Economy recap

The Ibrahim accords. You heard it here first. © DEM

As we look for signs of peace, the peace sign remains “forbidden” in Turkey as one Korean tourist learned at the Hagia Sophia.

The parliamentary commission to oversee the PKK peace process was supposed to be established before summer recess, but the parliament logged off until Oct. 1. Still, we may get an announcement in the coming days or weeks.

“A certain consensus was reached among all political parties except the IYI Party,” Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit, DEM Party parliamentary group deputy chair, told Turkey recap*.

She added, “A common understanding was achieved on some fundamental rules regarding the commission's functions. For example, a consensus was reached that legislative proposals to be discussed in the commission must be approved by a three-fifths qualified majority.”

The commission is a key step in advancing the initiative and Turkish Intelligence Chief Ibrahim Kalın visited political parties this week to lay the groundwork. His meeting with DEM Party lasted 65 minutes, and while details are sparse, clues about the road ahead can be drawn from recent media interviews.

1. Speaking to Bianet, DEM deputy co-chair Öztürk Türkdoğan detailed potential legal steps in the process, including the implementation of ECHR rulings – like the release of former HDP co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ.

2. DEM Party co-chair Tuncer Bakırhan provided further context in a T24 interview, including his thoughts on the CHP’s role in the process, and the prospects for a future DEM Party presidential candidate.

3. MHP chair Devlet Bahçeli also surprised many by proposing vice presidential posts to represent minority groups, prompting a complex debate that Bahçeli expands on here.

Commenting on Bahçeli’s central role in the process to date, Gıran Özcan, executive director of the Kurdish Peace Institute, said the MHP has little to lose in terms of electoral votes, meaning it can float trial balloons on legislative reforms, unlike the AKP, which is bound by “narrow political considerations.”

“Whether the MHP gets 5 or 10 percent in the next elections really does not impact its political position, but whether the AKP gets 30 or 40 percent makes a huge impact on its very existence as a political force,” Özcan told Turkey recap, cautioning the process remains highly fragile.

“Just like the end of the failed peace process in 2015, if the AKP sees that this process is having a negative effect on its electoral prospects, then it may once again choose to remilitarize the Kurdish question,” he added.

In the present moment, DEM Party’s Koçyiğit said delays in establishing the parliamentary commission represent “a significant problem” at a time “when societal expectations are very high.”

“There are different approaches among parties regarding the commission's mission. Everyone attributes a different function and role to the commission,” she said. “This makes it difficult to find common ground.”

Asked which reforms or legal changes DEM Party might prioritize following the commission’s establishment, Koçyiğit responded:

“For the establishment of social peace, our priority is the permanent cessation of the conflict process and the implementation of democratic integration laws that will ensure the dignified and safe participation of those who have laid down their arms into all areas of life.”

“Furthermore, all discriminatory, exclusionary laws and regulations that have caused human rights violations for years due to the Kurdish issue must be abolished.”

*Disclosure for new readers: My wife, Ceylan Akça, is a deputy with DEM Party

Fidan calls for a time out in Syria like Samuel L. Jackson in ‘Do the right thing’. © AA

Things foul apart: Sweida clashes test Turkey-Syria ties, peace process