28 July 2009 / TODAY'S ZAMAN, ANKARA
Yalçın Akdoğan, an aide to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Sunday that in the process toward a solution to the Kurdish problem, the government would not talk to “those who have brought the issue to this.”
Akdoğan wrote in the Star daily on Sunday that for a viable solution to be established, all state agencies should act in accordance with the main strategy devised by the state. He also warned that provocative attempts at damaging the relatively positive atmosphere that has emerged in the past year might take place. “The process should not be sabotaged. We have seen in the past that whenever a will for a solution has emerged, whenever there have been attempts to take positive steps, a shady hand has come out and carried out provocative activities to halt the process,” he said.
Akdoğan's statements published on Sunday are seen as the initial first-hand revelations of the contents of a new Kurdish package the government plans to announce this week. Akdoğan said it would be unfair to tie the solution process to a road map that terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan plans to announce on Aug. 15 from prison. Akdoğan also accused the Democratic Society Party (DTP) of trying to legitimize the PKK and of trying to make the PKK and Öcalan appear to be the only priority of the Kurdish people.
