Hürriyet Daily News published an article by Murat Yetkin devoted to the Kurdish issue. "According to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the most important target on the hidden agenda of “those” who conspired against his government behind the Taksim wave of protests was to undermine the government’s initiative to find a political solution to the Kurdish problem. In a public demonstration on June 21 in the Central Anatolian stronghold of Kayseri, Erdoğan said “those” - without specifying who they were - hiding behind the protestors were uneasy not only because of the economic successes of the government and because his Justice and Development Party (AKP) had slammed the “elites” of the past and brought ordinary people to power, but also because there had been no clashes in the last six months due to terrorist actions," the article reads.
"Erdoğan was referring to the dialogue started on his orders to Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkish intelligence (MİT) to talk to Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK, in which the Kurdish problem-focused Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) was involved later on, as a party represented in the Turkish Parliament and sharing the same grassroots with the PKK."
"As a result of that dialogue, the PKK had started to pull out some of its militants in Turkey to its military bases in neighboring Iraq in early May. The PKK also activated its front organization, KCK, to tell its sympathizers why they might abandon the “armed struggle,” to which they “owe their power,” against the Turkish state, as the government recruited a group of “Wise persons” consisting of popular academics, writers as well as singers, actors and actresses to tell people that this in-family feud had to come to an end with no more bloodshed," Yetkin writes.
"But the PKK’s patience is thin. Its de facto leader Murat Karayılan has been giving threatening statements from his headquarters in the Kandil Mountains of Iraq, saying that Erdoğan’s government should take immediate actions for Phase II of the process, that is to take legislative steps in the Turkish system, because he suspected that the Turkish security forces could launch an attack on them at any time," the article reads.
