Talk about being for it before being against it. That has been the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government’s position on the need for parliamentary supervision over the talks aiming to end the three decade long Kurdish armed movement in Turkey. For example, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan argued up until few days ago that any parliamentary involvement would be risking to legitimize the separatist Kurdish terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). He said on March 29: “It’s the government that bears full responsibility [for these talks.]” On April 3, however, AKP proposed to form a parliamentary “commission to evaluate the resolution process.” On Thursday [April 4] both opposition parties flatly turned down the request to  participate in this “investigative commission.”

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag strongly criticized the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for their decision. “It’s tremendously a wrong approach to say that 'we’re not going to participate to the commission' on such a [critical] issue,” he said.

Akif Hamzacebi, deputy chairman of the CHP’s parliamentary group, however, argued: “The proposal to form an investigative commission [on talks with the PKK] are against the constitution and parliamentary regulation rules.”

“When you talk about investigative commissions, the parties will get proportional representation based on their total seat numbers in the parliament. In this way, it won’t be different than the composition of, let’s say, the foreign relations commission where 15 out of 26 members are taken by the AKP,” Faruk Logoglu, deputy chairman of CHP told Al-Monitor. “Our proposal [in June 2012] was completely different. We offered to establish 'societal consensus commission' where each party would have equal representation in it. They would also be the ones to determine the 'wise people,' and that they would directly report to the parliament, not the government. This way, it would present to the nation that the parliament recognizes the significance of this issue and acts upon it with full acknowledgement that it goes beyond political parties.”