ANKARA
The “solution process” to end Turkey's 40-year conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is advancing positively and no one will be able to disturb this process, the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said.
Addressing Turkish businessmen on Friday at the new presidential palace in Ankara, Erdogan said: "The people, especially of our southeastern regions, are not giving credit to those trying to disturb the process, including that party claiming to defend the rights of Kurds."
"Those who threaten this process with taking to the streets or with restarting guerilla fighting are not respected any more in Turkey," Erdogan said.
The leftist and pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, or HDP, has said it will oppose new legislation on domestic security – should it be approved in parliament – and call for street protests.
Pro-Kurdish protesters took to streets across the country in late October under the pretext that the Turkish government was allegedly doing nothing to halt the advance of extremists pouring into the Turkish-Syrian border town of Kobani. Dozens of people were killed in the street protests.
The new law announced by the government would enable security forces “to prevent crimes" without waiting for a search warrant from the public prosecutor, according to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
The leftist HDP is an offshoot from another pro-Kurdish party, formed in 2013 with the aim of winning broad support across Turkey contrary to previous Kurdish parties which had a strong voter base located in eastern Turkey.
"The HDP has to first clean its hands from the blood they spilled during October events [for Kobani]," Erdogan said Friday.
Erdogan also returned to the subject of a "parallel state" structure which the Turkish government claims is nesting in the country’s bureaucracy, judiciary and police.
"Neither the parallel state nor their international masterminds want Turkey to end its terrorism problem or its economy to flourish. The parallel state is a pawn in the hands of international circles desiring the return of old Turkey," Erdogan said.
"Their graft scenarios have covered their coup efforts against our government," he said, asking for Turkish businessmen's support in the fight with parallel state.
"Even the cabinet members to be placed after their contemplated ouster of the AK Party government was ready. They were contemplating a government which would serve to the interests of international circles," the president said.
"Their coup efforts worked out in Egypt and Ukraine, but they failed in Turkey."
An investigation related to illegal wiretapping in a 2013 anti-graft probe led to the arrest of dozens of police officers and the transfer of a number of others in addition to members of the judiciary.
All those detained were later released pending trial.
The Turkish government called the probe a "dirty plot" orchestrated by a "parallel state." The anti-graft probe saw high-profile figures close to the government detained.
Erdogan also touched on Turkey's credit rating calling any downgrading by international credit institutions as "intentional" and "unfair."
"Such attacks are being conducted very systematically and from one center. The real purpose is to wear Turkey down and favor the return to older times when instability prevailed," he said.
Turkish officials have regularly slammed credit rating agencies. In November, the U.S.-based Standard & Poor's kept Turkey's credit rating at BB+ with a “negative” outlook.
Erdogan also addressed the criticisms of the opposition concerning "overspending” on the construction of the new presidential palace in Ankara, known as "White Palace."
"This week the UK premier David Cameron visited our country. They are restoring the Westminster Palace, spending a total $5 billion. Our total spending is $650 million. Do we witness any fuss in the UK?" Erdogan asked.
www.aa.com.tr/en
