PKK betrayed 'solution' process, says Turkish deputy PM

ANKARA

Turkey’s acting Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan has accused the PKK terrorist organization of exploiting and betraying the “solution process”, which aimed to end the decades-long conflict through peaceful means.

Deputy Prime Minister Akdogan is the acting prime minister in lieu of Ahmet Davutoglu, who is in the U.S. attending the UN General Assembly.

“The organization [PKK] has exploited and betrayed the process. I say to them: you cannot maintain it, even if you wanted. Because with these actions the process became unmaintainable," Akdogan said in his address to the Justice and Development (AK) Party’s local administration consultation meeting in the capital Ankara on Monday.

He acknowledged that some people were still saying that the administration should “continue with the [solution] process."

“These [anti-PKK] operations were not carried out for joy,” he said, adding: “This security gap will be completely closed."

All PKK camps in Kandil and nearby regions in northern Iraq have been destroyed, Akdogan said.

“Every single day, very effective operations are being carried out. Unmanned vehicles detect immediately whoever raises his head, planes depart and destroy their camps. That is why the organization [PKK] is in panic,” he said. “Ammunitions depots, logistics depots and whatever [they had] are being destroyed, one by one.”

He said that “some remotely-controlled bomb attacks, some actions in which civilians also lost their lives” were examples of panic in PKK ranks.

On Sunday, a nine-year-old girl lost her life in a PKK rocket attack in Diyarbakir's Bismil district.

Akdogan recalled that the Turkish army gave its three martyrs during the recently held Eid al-Adha. He said that this showed that the “traitor, murderer and thug terrorist organization…does not even recognize the feast [Eid]."

“They [PKK] wanted to stir a revolutionary people’s war. This project has also collapsed,” as well as the projects to declare autonomy in southeastern regions, he added.

According to Turkish government figures, the PKK has killed around 30 civilians since July, while more than 120 members of security forces have been martyred.

The renewed violence came in the wake of the July 20 Suruc massacre following a fragile cease-fire from early 2013.

The “solution process” refers to the 2013 initiative of the AK Party government that aims to end the decades-old conflict with the terrorist organization PKK, which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey as well as by the U.S. and the European Union.