World press on Turkey and Kurdish peace process (September 30, 2013)

"Turkey presents reforms aimed at boosting Kurdish peace process" is an article published by the Reuters agency today. 

'Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Monday announced long-anticipated reforms seen as designed to salvage a fragile peace process with Kurdish insurgents, including changes to the electoral system and increasing language rights," the article states.

"Erdogan has invested much political capital in the peace initiative, which has drawn strong public support but is increasingly attracting fierce nationalist criticism over perceived concessions to militants officially deemed terrorists. In a major policy speech, Erdogan said parliament would debate whether to reduce the threshold for a political party to enter parliament to 5 percent of the national vote, or even eliminate the barrier completely and introduce a "narrowing" of the current constituency system," the article reads.

"However, a co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) said the proposals failed to go far enough to advance peace with the militant PKK, which this month halted its withdrawal of fighters from Turkish territory on grounds that the government was not moving swiftly enough to see through its end of the deal," the author writes.

"BDP co-chairwoman Gultan Kisanak said the measures fell short. "The democratisation package does not meet our expectations," she told reporters. "The package does not have the capacity to overcome the blockages in the peace process." Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and Turkish officials began peace talks around a year ago and in March called a halt to hostilities in a conflict which has killed more than 40,000 people. The ceasefire has largely held. Earlier this month the PKK warned that hostilities could resume without concrete action by the government," the article reads.