Kurdistan Workers' Party

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan has warned the military leaders of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) after they suggested that the group's jailed head could achieve their coming party congress if the peace process comes to fruition.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan has released a warning to a leading military leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who suggested that if their jailed leader would be able to attend their upcoming party congress, the peace process would achieve its purpose.

Arguing that the government has failed to make substantial progress in the peace process, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has put forth its own proposal aimed at resolving the Kurdish issue in Parliament.

Both the government and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have simultaneously announced that the stalled peace process has entered “a new phase,” with the latter emphasizing that the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) will assume a more central role in the new phase.

A crisis in the Kurdish peace bid has passed and a new phase in the process has started, Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Istanbul deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder has said, noting that issues that need to be resolved in the process would be done so urgently.

Interior Minister Efkan Ala gave a detailed briefing to Cabinet members on the ongoing Kurdish peace process at the last Cabinet meeting, where he assured ministers that the process will continue under full public order with the expectation of a permanent truce in the coming months.

An Istanbul court on Dec. 19 acquitted Pınar Selek once again, in a case in which she was accused of being involved in the bombing of Istanbul's Spice Bazaar in 1998.

The feminist scholar, who lives in Strasbourg and is known for her work on Kurdish people, was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment last January, despite being acquitted of the same charge three times in the past.

The Turkish Consul in Karlsruhe has contacted one of the arrested three Turkish men accused of spying on compatriots in Germany for Turkish intelligence, while another, a Turkish national, refused to meet with the consul, a Turkish official has told the Hürriyet Daily News.

German prosecutors said Dec. 18 that they had arrested three Turkish men accused of spying on compatriots in Germany for Turkish intelligence, but Ankara denied that the suspects were linked to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT).

The continued rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) endangers the existence of Turkey as a country and will lead to a chaos, the co-chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş, has said.