HDP delegation – South Africa visit

IMG_2802A committee from Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) held a series of meetings in South Africa. HDP Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, HDP MPs Osman Baydemir and Bedia Özgökçe Ertan held a series of meetings in Cape Town, South Africa between August 22 and 26.
The committee’s first meeting was with Deputy Foreign Minister Nomanidiya Mfekeyo on Monday. South Africa’s legendary leader Nelson Mandela’s lawyer Judge Essa Mossa attended this meeting as well.
In the meeting, main topics of discussion were Kurds’ situation in Kurdistan and especially Turkey, Turkey’s current position, the antidemocratic practices, massacres suffered by Kurds and the lifting of the immunities, the oppression and discrimination faced by HDP in Turkey’s Parliament despite HDP being a legal and elected party.
The committee also pointed out the importance of the meeting with ANC and expressed their wish to draw on the South African experience on the Kurdish issue and a return to peace talks and their request to work together.
The committee also met with ANC’s South Africa Parliament international relations chair Edna Molewa and MP Ebrahim Ebrahim. In both meetings, the committee provided information on the general situation of Kurds in Turkey and pointed out that the Kurdish issue in Turkey could only be solved through democratic means. IMG_2639
The meetings’ result was that it could be possible to draw on the South Africa experience in the solution to the Kurdish issue and South Africa could take on the duty of impartial observer in the negotiations process.
The committee also held meetings with the heads of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court, ANC parliament work group and foreign relations committee.