Erdoğan says poll shows 57.7 percent support solution move
NORTH KURDISTAN (TURKEY)
28 March 2013 / TODAYSZAMAN.COM, İSTANBUL – Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has stated that 57.7 percent of the population supports the settlement process in the country to end the three-decade-long conflict with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
According to a report by the Milliyet daily on Thursday, Erdoğan had a breakfast meeting with Mediterranean region deputies from his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) on Wednesday in which he stated that despite the criticism from the opposition parties, a poll showed that 57.7 percent of the country is backing the settlement move to end the bloodshed in the country. The source of the poll was not made clear.
Erdoğan reportedly spoke about the progress in the settlement talks and explained the aims of the AK Party in this process, adding that his party is determined to end the deadly conflict in Turkey. Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan called on the armed PKK forces for a cease-fire and withdrawal from Turkey in a long-awaited historic announcement last Thursday, the day of the Kurdish new year festival of Nevruz, read at a gathering in Diyarbakır province. The PKK leader’s announcement follows months of talks with Turkish intelligence officers and Kurdish politicians on İmralı Island in the Marmara Sea, where he has been held since his capture by Turkish special forces in Kenya in 1999.