Selahattin Demirtaş, Turkey's jailed pro-Kurdish the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) leader said HDP could have done more to save the "peace talks".
"President Erdoğan and his AKP party thought that the peace process was costing them votes, and decided to terminate it. The PKK didn't do enough to revive the process, and to frustrate the AKP's policies of war and violence," Selahattin Demirtaş told Reuters in an interview from prison.
Demirtaş also said that he believed he accepted some blame for failing to halt the collapse of "peace talks" between the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP government and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). In July 2015 a 2-1/2-year ceasefire and a so-called "peace process" between the PKK and the state collapsed, plunging the southeast into some of the worst violence in decades.
Prosecutors are seeking jail sentences of 142 years for Demirtaş and 83 years for former HDP co-head Figen Yüksekdağ on charges of propaganda in support of the PKK. The HDP denies direct ties to the PKK, which since 1984 has carried out an armed insurgency in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast that has left more than 40,000 dead.
In the written response to questions submitted by Reuters to his lawyers, Demirtaş also said no judge could stand up to Erdoğan, expressing doubts he could ever have a fair trial after the president publicly labelled him a terrorist.
"Unfortunately, no judges in Turkey can object to Erdoğan's unlawful and transgressive remarks. Judges are facing the threat of being removed, sacked or jailed. We will certainly hold Erdogan and judges who abide by him accountable."
