ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The recent release of a video of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan is aimed at sabotaging the Kurdish peace process and confusing the voters before the March local elections in Turkey, said a Kurdish MP in the Turkish parliament.
“The release of the video is within the frame of the attempts to sabotage the peace and confuse the Kurdish voters,” said Sirri Sureyya Onder, co-founder of the People's Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey.
On Thursday, the vice chairman of the Workers' Party of Turkey, Hasan Basri Ozbey, released Ocalan’s video at a press conference in Istanbul.
The video appears to show the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) being questioned by Hasan Atilla Ugur, a Turkish military colonel who was later arrested for a plot to overthrow the government, shortly after his arrest in 1999.
“Those who released the video belong to the deep state forces who are opposing a resolution of the Kurdish issue,” Onder said. “The deep state forces have released the video just before the elections to put negative influence on Ocalan’s status and role,” he added.
Ugur, who appears to be questioning Ocalan in the video, was arrested in 2008 for alleged connection with the Ergenekon clandestine operation to overthrow the government. In 2013, a Turkish court sentenced Ugur to 29 years in jail for involvement in conspiracies against the government.
Last year, the Kurdish Peace and Democracy (BDP) negotiated a peace agreement between Ankara and Ocalan, to end a three-decade guerrilla conflict. But the process has been stalled for several months.
A new delegation from the pro-Kurdish HDP and BDP is expected to visit Ocalan in his Imrali island prison cell. The 65-year-old Kurdish leader has been held in solidarity confinement since his capture.
Several pictures of Ocalan were also released last December, showing him in meetings with visiting Kurdish delegations during talks about the Kurdish peace process in Turkey.
Many believed that the release of the photographs was related to an intense and ongoing rivalry between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen, a spiritual leader, businessman and head of the powerful Gulen movement.
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