A 20-year-old photo is back on the agenda: Erdoğan on one side, Osman Kavala on the other...

Turkey is currently focused on the results that will emerge from the commission established in Parliament following the PKK terrorist organization's self-dissolution and laying down of arms. In this process, journalist Ertuğrul Özkök has brought a remarkable photo from 20 years ago back to the agenda.

In the early 2000s, 150 intellectuals penned a text calling on the PKK to lay down its arms. Following this call, which resonated widely at the time, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan organized a meeting and dinner with representatives selected from among the intellectuals who signed the text.

THE TWO ENDS OF THE TABLE: ERDOĞAN AND KAVALA

The photo taken at the meeting has returned to the agenda years later. While Erdoğan was at one end of the table, Osman Kavala, who has been in prison for 7 years due to the Gezi trial, was at the other. Kavala remains imprisoned despite the ECHR's binding ruling for his release.

THE FOUR NAMES ERDOĞAN ADDED TO THE TABLE

In his article titled "Which four writers did Erdoğan add to the 'make the PKK lay down arms' table?", Ertuğrul Özkök shared an unknown detail about the photo. According to Özkök, Erdoğan invited Ahmet Hakan, Oral Çalışlar, Ali Bayramoğlu, and Adalet Ağaoğlu to the table.

Finding it unsurprising that names other than Adalet Ağaoğlu were invited to the table given the conditions of that time, Özkök wrote the following:

I am coming to the new thing I learned about this meeting…

The signatory intellectuals form a group of 8 among themselves.

However, when they arrive at the Prime Ministry, a surprise awaits them.

4 names have been added to the delegation that will meet.

The 4 names that Prime Minister Erdoğan added to the meeting delegation are as follows:

“Ahmet Hakan, Oral Çalışlar, Ali Bayramoğlu, and Adalet Ağaoğlu…”

Three of these are not surprising for that day.

Because they were journalists who supported the steps taken by Prime Minister Erdoğan and his party in those days.

However, his addition of Adalet Ağaoğlu seemed interesting to me.

Who insisted on the off-the-record decision for the meeting?

Before going to the meeting, the original first group of 8 people considers asking for it to be “off the record.”

Because they want to express their thoughts comfortably.

However, some of the 4 people added by Erdoğan are in favor of it being written.

Meanwhile, Nuray Mert from the first group says to Erdoğan, “Mr. Prime Minister, they don't listen when we say it, you say it here so they don't write it.”