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Ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) spokesman Ömer Çelik on Tuesday reaffirmed that achieving a “Terror-Free Türkiye” remains a state policy, warning that the government will not allow the process to be undermined by what he described as bad-faith political accusations or illegitimate labeling.
Speaking during a press briefing as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan chaired an ongoing Central Decision and Executive Board (MKYK) meeting at AK Party headquarters, Çelik said constructive criticism on counterterrorism is welcome, but efforts to “poison the process” through blanket rejection or insults will not be tolerated.
“Those with sincere proposals or criticism are heard, but we will not allow those who try to undermine the process with smear tactics or illegitimate political labels,” he said. “There will be no concessions or negotiations when it comes to the nature of our state and the values of our nation.”
Çelik emphasized that the initiative’s central goal is the complete dissolution of the PKK terrorist group and all its extensions.
“The focus is not alternative political agendas,” he said. “The primary objective is the PKK’s full disbandment and the laying down of arms.”
He added that the state will continue using both hard power and soft power tools within the rule of law to permanently remove terrorism from the national agenda, as advanced democracies do.
The terror-free Türkiye initiative launched by Devlet Bahçeli, chair of government ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), took a new turn last week when a group of lawmakers agreed to visit Öcalan in the island prison where he was incarcerated.
It was Bahçeli who urged lawmakers to hold talks with Öcalan in a recent speech and volunteered to go by himself if no one else did. The National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Committee of Parliament, set up last August to chart a road map for the initiative, approved the call.
Opponents of the terror-free Türkiye initiative have criticized planned talks with Öcalan, though Bahçeli says it is necessary to give voice to the initiative’s leading actor. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which has representatives in the parliamentary committee, shunned sending representatives to the delegation that will meet Öcalan. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), the MHP, and the pro-PKK Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) agreed to dispatch lawmakers to Imralı.
This is not the first visit by delegations; DEM Party lawmakers also met him last year after the initiative was launched. Those were the first visits to Öcalan in years, who had once been held in solitary confinement in the prison before authorities, long before the start of the initiative, allowed fellow inmates to be transported to the island.
Çelik said President Erdoğan opened the MKYK meeting with a detailed assessment of the situation in Gaza, stressing that Israel continues to breach the cease-fire “even under the cease-fire framework itself.”
“Israel keeps the aid entries at around 200 trucks a day or even lower – far below the 600 to 700 originally envisioned,” Çelik said. “The cease-fire has reached an extremely fragile point.”
Turning to President Erdoğan’s participation in the G-20 Summit in South Africa, Çelik drew a sharp contrast between Türkiye’s policy and that of Western powers.
“Our approach to Africa is humanitarian, not interest-driven,” he said. “Those who exploited Africa for decades now hesitate to share prosperity. We see people and real stories, not just resources.”
Responding to remarks by Ferhat Abdi Şahin, code-named “Mazloum Kobani,” the ringleader of the YPG terrorist group in Syria, about a possible Imralı visit, Çelik said Türkiye evaluates actions, not statements.
“If someone claims they do not pose a threat to Türkiye, we must see this reflected on the ground,” he said. “SDF is the Syrian branch of the PKK. Within the vision of a Terror-Free Türkiye and a Terror-Free Region, the SDF must cease being a threat.”
Çelik announced that President Erdoğan will join an online “Volunteers Coalition Leaders Summit” to discuss pathways toward a fair and lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine.
He also confirmed that the 11th Judicial Reform Package will be submitted to Parliament on Friday.
“This package is not about the amnesty discussions circulating in public,” he said, noting that some (execution-of-sentence) regulations may be updated.
