First of all, I would like to congratulate the people of Kurdistan, the people of the Middle East, humanity, and people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan on the 12th Congress of the PKK. The congress was held in May, which is the Month of Martyrs to the Kurdistan Freedom Movement. Of course, the movement has given martyrs in all months of the year, but the month of May stands out. I commemorate all the martyrs of the month of May and generally all martyrs of the struggle for freedom and democracy by commemoration comrade Fuat and comrade Rıza. I pay my respect and express my gratitude to them. If the 12th Congress was held successfully, it was realized as a result of great labor, struggle, cost, and suffering. The congress was held on the basis of people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan’s great effort. Adding to this, our martyrs, our people, our international friends, and especially Sırrı Süreyya Önder also made a great effort. They paved the way for the congress to be held successfully and enabled it to take far-reaching decisions.

When the PKK was founded, the circumstances of the Kurdish people were very bad. The socialist and democratic movements in Turkey had suffered a great blow. Again, the Kurdish people, no matter how much they revolted, no matter how much they struggled, constantly had to face massacres, forced displacements, and imprisoning. Therefore the intervention of people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan was a historic intervention. He intervened while the people were facing severe circumstances, in a difficult period when there were no prepared opportunities. If it had not been for people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan’s intervention, perhaps nothing would be left today in the name of Kurds and Kurdistan. It would have been made forgotten. This is a reality. People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan’s emergence and intervention were historically for this very reason. In other words, no one had been talking about a country like Kurdistan, and no one had been talking about a people like them anymore. With his intervention, people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan brought Kurds back to their feet. He made history and created a great resurrection. The Kurdish people, the people of the Middle East, and humanity need to be aware of this fact. People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan developed an intense struggle from the very beginning. Ideologically and philosophically, he waged a tough struggle with a small group in Ankara. This very group developed its ideological and then political dimension. On this basis, it became a youth movement.

After this group took its first steps, held many meetings, and prepared the foundation, it developed the move towards forming a party. The establishment of the PKK has a very special place in the history of the people of Kurdistan. Because it changed a history that was facing extinction. It enabled the Kurds to write their own history. The history written until then was not for the Kurds; there were no Kurds in it; there was only the denial and annihilation of the Kurds. With the establishment of the PKK, this changed.

The Turkish state had ‘Imaginary Kurdistan is buried here’ engraved on a stone slab that it had installed on Mount Ararat.

That’s right, there were almost no Kurds or Kurdistan anymore; they had almost been annihilated. Massacres, forced displacement, assimilation… Again, the left-socialist movements in Turkey were also annihilated. In other words, all those steps towards a resurrection of this people were taken under difficult conditions, at great cost, with great pain. When this movement made its first steps, many people stood against it. They said, “This thought, this philosophy, this struggle should not enter Kurdistan; it will not bring anything to the Kurds; in fact, it will destroy the few things left that exist in the name of Kurdistan and Kurdistan”. But people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan stood against all these obstacles. And as a result, the movement was able to take steps, develop, and reach today.

The struggle developed by people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan was to enable the Kurds to wage a struggle for freedom and democracy. He took the free life in Kurdistan as a basis. “If there is to be a life, it will be free,” he said. The current life that existed back then brought the Kurds to death and not life. What existed could not be called living. Therefore, on behalf of Kurdistan and on behalf of the people of Kurdistan, he started a struggle to reveal what life is and what death is and made everyone understand. He showed what kind of struggle, philosophy, ideology, politics, leadership, organization, militancy, and patriotism must develop in Kurdistan so that Kurds can survive, stand up, live, and struggle for themselves. For this, people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan developed a multifaceted and historic intervention. It is on this basis that people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan developed the PKK.

There are many oppressed peoples in the world. Oppressors have occupied countries and enforced their politics there, but they have never experienced what has been done in Kurdistan. There is a completely different situation in Kurdistan. There was total annihilation. It was not easy to revive a people in such a state, to create and develop a people who would be able to struggle for their freedom under the given circumstances. All this happened at great cost, with great pain, and with great struggles. When the 1st Congress was held, it created great excitement. It had a great impact on me, on the comrades who attended the congress, on the comrades who were parts of all the works, and on the people. No one in the world calculated that such a movement would emerge in the name of Kurds and Kurdistan. Everyone was surprised; not only the Turkish state was shocked, but the whole world was surprised. There was great enthusiasm and morale among the people and their friends in Kurdistan. Maybe not everyone deeply understood the steps taken by people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan in the 1st Congress, but even so, a struggle for freedom and democracy on behalf of Kurdistan and the people of Kurdistan had been organized and declared. This very fact created great morale and enthusiasm in everyone, which I personally experienced as well. Because until then there had been no organization, no struggle, there was nothing on behalf of Kurds and Kurdistan. For the first time, the Kurdish people gained a history, an organization, a leadership, an identity, and a struggle. Until then, no one knew what death was or what life was. No one knew how they would rise up. Everyone had accepted the fate that the occupiers had written for the Kurds. People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan reversed this. That is why that intervention was historic.

People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan started in this way and has developed a far-reaching struggle until today. The PKK is the development of revolution within revolution. People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan’s goal was a free life, a free society. He spent his whole life on this, and he achieved results. In the beginning, he created a great value, a great history, and a great identity in Kurdistan; he proved to the world that Kurds live and will take their right to live like everyone else. After he brought the Kurds to their feet, people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan said, “We have succeeded in the resurrection; we need to complete this with freedom.” That is what he claimed already in 1993. He now wanted to solve the Kurdish question through political and democratic means. However, since the Turkish state’s mentality is one of denial and annihilation, it sabotaged the move that was started. It prevented that move from developing and the Kurdish question from being solved through political and democratic means. But people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan insisted on this. In 1995 he developed a bigger move. In the course of the 5th Congress, he put change on the agenda in order to develop the goal of democracy and freedom and to solve the Kurdish question through political and democratic means.

It was people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan’s aim to develop free life, and he could only develop this through women’s freedom. Therefore, he developed the theory and ideology of women’s liberation, and at the 5th Congress, he developed the corresponding organization. This was a fundamental change. Then, in 1998, he wanted to complete the moves he had started in 1993-95. He wanted to complete the fundamental change. But he was confronted with the international conspiracy. They did not allow people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan to develop this move.

But again, he managed to develop an ideological revolution in Imrali under the most severe conditions, facing the greatest impossibilities. He developed a new revolution on an ideological dimension and developed fundamental changes in the movement. On this basis, he wanted to solve the Kurdish question through political and democratic means. But since the mentality of the Turkish state is denial and annihilation, they developed the policy that they called “forcing them to their knees”. They again wanted to annihilate everything in the name of Kurds and Kurdistan. Despite all this, people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan continued the move he had taken and insisted on it. The Turkish state could not get results with its policy. It wanted to annihilate the movement completely, but our people, the guerrilla and the international friends of our people struggled, paid a great price, gave great martyrs, and suffered great pain, and so they did prevent the politics of genocide from succeeding; they frustrated that politics.

In addition to this, the Third World War started to unfold in the Middle East. The Turkish state realized that it would not be able to achieve results with its genocidal policy, and when it insisted on this, it saw that the problems in the country were deepening and dangers were developing for Turkey. They also realized that the war was creating fundamental changes in the Middle East, so they realized that the politics they were conducting at that time would create great dangers for the state and decided to change their politics. This is how we came to the 12th Congress of the PKK.

You stated that new developments are taking place in the Middle East and that the policy of ‘forcing them to their knees’ was put into action against the Kurdish people. You elaborated that this policy did not succeed, that the resistance of the people, the guerrilla, and the international friends of the people prevented this, and that the Turkish state had to change its policy following the developments in the Middle East. The congress now took place after the ‘Call for Peace and Democratic Society’ published by people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan on February 27. How do you evaluate the ongoing developments?

When I began to understand how people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan was able to bring about development in me, this triggered great morale and enthusiasm in me. It was the same at the first congress, and it is the same again at the twelfth congress. My morale, conviction, motivation, and will to struggle are greater than before. There are reasons for this. In the beginning, it may have started with a very small group, then that group grew, became a youth movement, and then it turned into a party. The first manifesto was about how to reveal the Kurdish question, how to make everyone understand it, and about how to bring it to the agenda and develop a solution for it. This created great morale and excitement, and a struggle was developed on this basis. A people came back from death; it resurrected and rose up. The 12th Congress brought this to an even greater stage and deepened it. The movement, which started as a small group, has now reached the world and has become a universal movement. It is not only based on the struggle for the solution of the Kurdish question; it is based on the struggle for the solution of the problems of humanity, based on the general struggle for freedom and democracy. This is why I am so excited and enthusiastic. Everyone today takes the movement developed by people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan, the Kurdish people, and particularly the Kurdish women as an example and wants to solve their own problems on the basis of the truth revealed by people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan. This is what creates great morale and enthusiasm in us.

Today, the Kurdish people have reached such a stage that they are a force of stability, a force of change and transformation, and a force of democracy in the Middle East. Today, no one in the Middle East can achieve stability without the Kurds. The steps taken are historic. It wants to respond not only to the demands of the Kurdish people but also to the demands of the peoples of the Middle East and humanity. This, of course, creates a great enthusiasm and a great desire in us.

As mentioned before, the essence of this moment is that it is a youth movement, that it is a movement for a solution. It always flows like water; no one can stop it. From its inception until today, they have tried to stop it many times; there have been many attacks, interventions, and conspiracies, but they could not stop this movement. Even in the last period, when people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan developed the 12th Congress and called for ‘Peace and Democratic Society’, there again were many interventions, and they are still developing. But these interventions do not yield much result. It is the struggle developed by people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan that yields results.

The truth lies in front of the eyes of everyone. No one can deny this. If the ideology, philosophy, and truth of a movement are always based on change, renewal, and the demands of its people, the demands, hopes, and goals of humanity, no one can prevent it. If this movement has developed such a far-reaching struggle today, if it has paid the price, suffered, made great efforts, and stood against conspiracies and attacks, if it has become the hope of humanity today, this is because of the truth of people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan. It has to do with the philosophy, ideology, and methods he has been carrying out.

As far as we can follow, people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan is carrying out very extensive work. There are meetings taking place that are reflected in the media. At first the call was made, then the congress was held, and its decisions were announced. So far the state has not taken any steps. What kind of steps should be taken now? How should this process proceed?

Everyone should try to understand the reality of people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan well. He has taken the solution of the existing problem as a basis not only for the Kurdish people but also for the peoples of the Middle East and humanity. He is developing change and transformation in himself, in the movement, and in the people. This is the reality of people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan, the truth of the Apoist movement. People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan has taken some steps on how to bring the struggle for a solution to the Kurdish question to political and legal grounds. He shouldered a historical responsibility and took the initiative. Our movement takes people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan and his steps as a basis. He presented some of his evaluations to the congress and said, “This is a framework. You need to concentrate on this framework, and I am concentrating on it. Realize the necessary breakthrough”.

There are many evaluations being made both in Turkey and in the world. Some of the discussions in Turkey serve, but some of them are distorting. The history of Kurds and Turks should be thoroughly analyzed. Whenever Kurds and Turks have been allied, both the Turkish people and the Kurdish people have achieved significant results, progress, and victory. When this alliance weakened, stretched, or broke down, the peoples experienced problems. Very severe problems. Many things were lost due to this, and it had a negative impact on the peoples of the Middle East. In the last days of the Ottoman Empire, a national pact was formed in Turkey. What was developed with the national pact? It was said that the territory mentioned in it belongs to Kurds and Turks. It belongs to both. It was accepted as such. On this basis, Kurds and Turks waged a common struggle. Mustafa Kemal started his campaign in Erzirom [tr. Erzurum] and Sêwas [tr. Sivas], and in the course of it, the Turkish parliament was established. What was foremost in this process? There was a Kurdish-Turkish alliance; there was brotherhood, unity, and struggle together. But when the Turkish state was officially established, this alliance was forgotten. In fact, it was the common land of Kurds and Turks, but when the state was established, Kurds were excluded and denied. It was as if the Kurds did not exist. And what happened to those Kurds?

Looking at history, there have always been alliances between the people, from Sultan Sencer to Mustafa Kemal. With these alliances, the peoples of Turkey were able to take steps and achieve results. It was with the help and alliance of the Kurds. However, as soon as the state was established, they immediately stated that there are no Kurds. They denied the Kurds and even want to eliminate the Kurds. The PKK was founded because of the problems that had arisen from that. The Kurdish-Turkish alliance was broken, the identity of the Kurds was denied, and a policy of denial and extermination was carried out on the Kurds. The Kurds did, of course, not accept this and opposed it. If there were so many uprisings, it was for this reason. The formation of the PKK is the result of this. This is how people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan and the PKK arose. Now, they throw the responsibility for everything on the Kurds and on people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan. But he was the one that took upon the quest of solving the existing situation, and he waged a great struggle to realize this. The PKK is not responsible for this; those who broke this historical alliance and brotherhood are responsible.

People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan wants to renew this alliance; he wants to put it back on its feet. He wants to correct the deviation. Now some understand this, some are discussing it, but some are blocking the way for discussion. They don’t allow everyone to discuss freely. Those who block the way are those who consider themselves more democratic. But particularly those who consider themselves democrats should not block the discussion. They should be open. Turkey needs this. It has been blocked so far; what has Turkey gained? It has reached the edge of a cliff. The politics that has been conducted until now is bankrupt. They can no longer conduct politics. One should no longer insist on those diversions and distortions. One should not prevent discussion. Everyone should be able to express what they think. And one should not speak by rote.

They claim to protect the national pact, but that is just eyewashing. Why didn’t Mustafa Kemal start his campaign in Ankara or Istanbul, but he came and started in Erzirom, Sêwas and then established the parliament? He established it on the basis of the Kurdish-Turkish alliance. It was based on Kurdistan, on the Kurds. If this had not happened, the Turkish state couldn’t have been formed. The state was formed on this, and then they started to deny the identity of the Kurds and even wanted to annihilate them! Of course this is unacceptable. Discussions need to be developed. One should not be afraid of discussion, and one should not prevent it. For this reason, the process that people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan wants to develop is aimed at correcting the alliance that developed between Kurds and Turks in history; it is a historical correction. This is how brotherhood and alliance are formed. With this, the people of Turkey and the Kurdish people win. If the Turkish-Kurdish people win, the people of the Middle East also win. People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan’s breakthrough for peace and democratic society is not only for Kurds and Turks; it is for the entire Middle East, for all humanity. For this reason, my call is that they should understand well the decisions taken by the PKK at its congress and which people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan wants to develop with his call. Democratization will develop in Turkey, and a democratic society will emerge. This will serve and benefit everyone. For this reason, everyone should take part in it and serve it so that the call developed by people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan and the decisions taken by the PKK on that basis can win. We are working on this basis. My call to everyone is to leave the prejudices and the hostility aside. Contribute to the development of the Kurdish-Turkish alliance on the basis of brotherhood, democratization, and equality. This will benefit everyone.

What is often put on the agenda now is the Constitution of 1924. This was already the case in the past, when it was mainly the circles of the deep state and Ergenekon who got excited about the term. What does it mean now?

In 1924 the Turkish state was officially established. Starting with that, they denied the Kurds; they carried out a policy of denial and destruction against the Kurds. They have formalized and legalized it. It was then when they started to call the Kurds ‘separatists.’ But it is those who are terrorizing and dividing the country, not the Kurds. The Kurds are struggling to eliminate the fragmentation that has been created. They are doing a great service for Turkey, for the people of Turkey, and for the Middle East. For everyone to live freely with their own culture, identity, and values. For a democratic society to emerge and for everyone to express themselves freely in that society. This is the basis of the Kurdish struggle. Those who deny the identity and existence of the Kurds cause the greatest damage to Turkey. They are dividing Turkey. Kurds have never been based on dividing Turkey; research history well, from Sultan Sencer to Mustafa Kemal, they have always made alliances and always fought and defended together with the people of Turkey. Who is the one who pushed the national pact aside? It is not the Kurds. Who pushed the alliance aside and denied the Kurds? These questions should be asked thoroughly. These discussions must be discussed correctly. If they have a goal for Turkey, for the people of Turkey, they should approach history correctly.

If the mentality that was built in 1924 had existed before that, there would have been no Kurdish-Turkish alliance…

There was already an alliance between Kurds and Turks before 1924. They consider what was discussed in the national pact as a common land. It is the land of both Kurds and Turks. The struggle is also developing on behalf of Kurds and Turks. There are many documents clearly showing this.

Now people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan and the Kurdish people, want to put history back on its feet. This is what he is doing. Everyone should appreciate this effort and try to strengthen it.