The former president of the Generalitat Pere Aragonès defended from Istanbul the “important advances” that Catalonia has achieved thanks to negotiations with the PSOE government, since the pardons leading to amnesty: “We have demonstrated that doors which seem definitively closed can be opened”. Aragonès spoke this Saturday in Istanbul during a session on conflict resolution experiences at the international conference Peace and democratic societyorganized by the Turkish Equality and Democracy Party, which highlighted the role of dialogue in resolving the Catalan debate.
After expressing his solidarity with the sovereignist aspirations of the Kurdish people – “this fight is our fight” – Aragonès underlined the achievements that, according to him, Catalan independence has obtained in recent years, “step by step, sometimes in a short time and others with strong resistance”, thanks to “political courage” and voting on the democratic path.
For the former Catalan president, leadership is “very important” in political negotiation processes, as is knowing how to take advantage of the “opportunities” that open up, which sometimes “last for a certain time”.
In this sense, he recalled that the Government was open to negotiate with his party measures to divert the Catalan conflict because they needed their votes for the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez: “If it is hicieron for his political interest, but it is important for the results, we have the amnesty law”, he affirmed.
Aragonès recognized that the amnesty “did not serve to completely end the repression” of independence, which, he recalled, awaits the release of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and the disqualification of the leader of the ERC, Oriol Junqueras, was mentioned, but he said: “We are taking steps forward.”
Asimism, recognized that these successes in the “resolution” of the political conflict are due to the will of the Catalan people to “decide their future.” We still have a long way to go,” Aragonès said.
The former Catalan president also stressed the need to have a “long-term vision”, given that “a conflict that has its roots in history for thousands of years cannot be resolved from night to morning”.