Germany's left hosts conference on Kurdish issue

Neşe İdil / Duvar English

Germany's leftwing political party Die Linke and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (RLS) have hosted a conference on the Kurdish issue in the German Bundestag on March 6.

In several panels, the participants discussed "the current opportunities and perspectives" with regards to the solution of the Kurdish issue in the Middle East.

"With a population over 30 million, the Kurds are the world's biggest 'stateless people.' They mainly live in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The Kurds were subjected to decades-long discriminatory and oppressive policies in these four states," the description of the conference read.

The conference began with messages from peace activist Ela Gandhi and Turkey's Human Rights Association (İHD) co-chair Eren Keskin.

Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Istanbul deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu and Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Mithat Sancar attended the conference, sharing their insights on how a solution can be found to the issue in Turkey.

Tanrıkulu and Sancar, alongside Dilek Kurban from the Hertie School of Governance, spoke on a panel about the Kurdish issue in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's rule.

During the panel that was moderated by German deputy Helin Evrim Sommer and that was titled "Erdoğan's Turkey between repression and the struggle for democracy," Tanrıkulu shared the CHP's views on a peaceful solution to the issue.

"I talked about how the CHP perceives the Kurdish issue, what it did until today and what it plans to do in the future. I also shared the party's views on how Turkey must solve the issue in a peaceful manner," Tanrıkulu told Duvar English on March 8.

Tanrıkulu noted that the participants were curious about the CHP's document that details the party's views on the Kurdish issue under 22 questions.

"People were also curious about what the CHP thinks about the changes in the Kurdish question that took place in the past three to four years," he also said, adding that he and Sancar only attended the panel that they were panelists in.

"I had the chance to talk about the CHP's perceptions on the Kurdish issue just like I do in Turkey," Tanrıkulu noted.

In addition to political figures from Turkey, the conference hosted a number of politicians from Syria and Iraq, including Ilham Ahmed, the head of the executive committee of the Syria Democratic Council and Hewin Hawrami, deputy speaker of Iraqi Kurdistan's regional parliament.