ANKARA
Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala said there has been significant progress in Turkey’s "solution process" with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK.
“Patience and stability are needed and we have both," Ala said during a visit in Istanbul on Thursday.
The Turkish government’s "solution process" was launched in 2013 and aims to bring an end to the decades-long conflict with the PKK, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives.
PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan had shared a post on Twitter on Wednesday after a statement from the group that its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, would participate in a PKK convention.
"The solution process will not gain anything from unreal, untimely, inappropriate and provocative statements," Akdogan said in his Twitter post.
"This is an anachronistic behavior. They are either caught in the past or driven by dreams. Those who wake up each morning to yesterday are not able to live through time."
At least 38 people, including two police officers, were killed as pro-Kurdish protesters took to the streets across the country in October under the pretext that the Turkish government was allegedly not doing enough to halt the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the embattled town of Kobani.
www.aa.com.tr/en
