EC Meeting Papers January 2019

Your Excellency,

Thank you for your letter concerning the Freedom for Öcalan event to be staged in City Hall next week. We can indeed confirm that our organisations are supporting it and representatives of our organisations will be in attendance. The wider UK trade union and labour movement have a very long and proud history of international solidarity work and we have always stood shoulder to shoulder with those facing oppression, such as our campaigns for the rights of Palestinians, South Africans and Colombians. We are currently deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Turkey generally and in particular with regard to the treatment and repression of the Kurdish population, both within Turkey and in the neighbouring countries of Syria and Iraq. In line with our principles and traditions we intend to continue to stand in solidarity with the Kurdish population until their human rights are respected and they are treated fairly and properly. From our own experience in the UK and on the island of Ireland, we are well aware of the devastating impact of armed conflicts on civilian populations and we support all moves that may help to bring them to a negotiated and peaceful resolution. In this respect the decision of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2015 to unilaterally terminate the peace negotiations with the PKK and its leader Abdullah Öcalan was bitterly disappointing. We highly respected the courage of the Turkish government to enter negotiations in 2012 in the search for peace, just as in previous years we respected the courageous decisions of UK governments to enter talks with banned organisations in the search for peace in Ireland, and South African governments that did the same with the ANC and Nelson Mandela. In our experience pursuing military solutions rarely does anything except exacerbate division, suffering and pain for millions of people and does not resolve the problems that lay at the heart of such conflicts. We remain convinced that the cause of peace in Turkey will best be served by restarting the negotiations and engaging – as the Turkish government did for 3 years between 2012 and 2015 – with the political representatives of the Kurdish people, including the PKK and their leader Abdullah Öcalan. This will never be possible while Mr Öcalan is being held in total isolation on Imrali island being denied access to anyone at all, including his family and lawyers. We therefore urge the Turkish government to immediately address the inhumane conditions under which he is being held and to release him as part of the process of creating peace in the country. We are most grateful for kind your offer to discuss the matter in more detail and to that effect we would like to accept it and organise a delegation to meet with you. We shall be back in touch in the very near future once we have established some possible dates that we could suggest to you.

Yours sincerely,