Emine Ayan the female co-chair of Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (PDP) talked about their delegation meeting with Interior Minister and Pentagon authorities during their visit to the USA. “We told them that they must listen to the Kurdish problem from the first protagonists and spelled out the problems and the reasons which brought to the creation of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party).”
In the first week of May, BDP opened an office in Washington. The BDP committee was there at the opening, among them BDP foreign affairs responsible Emine Ayna who spoke about the details of the US visit with ANF.
Stating that the policies concerning the Kurdish question are determined in the UU, Emine Ayna spoke as follows; “We think that the US is listening only to one part in this question; the statements of Turkish state and government are determinant on the US policies. We wanted them to listen to the same question but from our point of view. This is why we have decided to open a BDP office in the US.”
Ayna remarked that during the meeting of the committee expressed that the US must play its role well in the search for a solution to the Kurdish problem and Turkey’s democratization, adding; “the US granted Turkey a big role in Afghanistan, Cyprus, Iraq and in the Islamic matters but the US can play its role only after Turkey reaches a permanent solution to the Kurdish problem.”
Ayna pointed out that the internal problems of Turkey won’t come to an end unless the Kurdish question is approached democratically. Ayna added; “If the US has such a substantial influence on Turkey, it has to see also the Kurdish people living in Turkey and their demands for the solution of the Kurdish question.”
Ayna added that the USA knows that the Kurdish question in Turkey is in fact not a matter of right or freedom, saying; “They deal with the Kurdish question as an economic matter. The Kurdish question is however, a political one, it is a matter of identity, culture and disparity; which the US has failed to see yet.”
Ayna concluded; “We met them because we thought that the US must listen to the Kurdish question from its first protagonists.”