YEREVAN (Noyan Tapan)–Armenian Kurds staged another demonstration of protest in Yerevan’s Liberty Square on Wednesday. The demonstrators marched to the front of the UN Armenia Office. "Peace to Kurdistan–freedom to Ocalan," the demonstrators chanted.
The Armenian representative of the Ocalan Committee Charkyaze Rash said that the Committee had collected 41,300 signatures in Armenia in support of Ocalan’s release. The lists of signatures were handed to a UN official.
Speaking of the statement issued by Abdullah Ocalan on August 2–in which he said that the PKK would discontinue its armed struggle against the Turkish state on September 1–Rash said that despite the fact that this statement had elicited a positive response from the world community–there had been some wrong commentaries alleging that the Kurds had given up their struggle and admitted their defeat.
"This is not true. We hope that Turkey will evaluate this step of good will and act likewise–or else the Kurds will continue their national-liberation struggle. Armistice does not mean disarmament," Rash emphasized.
"Our ability to invariably exhibit the potential of our resistance was practically the only way for us to survive," the Ocalan Committee said in a statement–which was made public during the demonstration. Saying that the liberation struggle claimed many human lives among the Kurds as well as caused huge material damage to the nation–the authors of the statement stressed that "Turkey has failed to realize its genocidal plans against the Kurdish people even after applying NATO force."
"The changes in the geopolitical climate will ask for appropriate steps. The opposition movement in all its aspects is drawing to conclusion now and the Kurds will enter the next century with the slogans of peace–guaranteed accord and liberty," the Committee concluded.