Erdoğan: We'll Handle Our Own Affairs Regarding Kurdish Issue

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said the involvement of foreign elements in Turkey's domestic problems has yielded no beneficial results, and only serves to exacerbate and complicate the process of finding solutions to issues.

Speaking to a group of pro-government journalists on the presidential plane en route to Turkey from Equatorial Guinea where he attended the second Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit in the capital, Malabo, Erdoğan responded to a question asking his opinion regarding suggestions that the US get involved in negotiations with regard to the Kurdish issue as a third party, saying no similar attempts in the past have produced good results.

Stressing that he is cool to the idea of a third party being involved in the settlement process, which has been conducted between the government and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and several other Kurdish political groups since 2011 in order to seek a solution to the country's four-decade-old Kurdish problem, which has claimed 40,000 lives so far, Erdoğan recalled several instances when foreign elements were involved in Turkey's domestic issues.

“The US or other states… We earlier experienced such involvement in different cases [in reference to Turkey's domestic problems]. Even in Oslo [in reference to the settlement process]. No matter [if there is a] third or fourth party. They did not produce a solution. The country's own people should solve such key problems. We are living together as Kurds and Turks in these lands and have lots of intermarriages. So far, we never used the term 'Kurdish terrorism.' Why? Because, many Kurds have not been involved in any act of terrorism. We have to make a difference between them and the terrorist group which exploits these people. We cannot solve this issue with the involvement of the US. For years a British person acted as a mediator with Kandil [in reference to the Kandil Mountains, where some PKK leaders reside]. He was acting as a third party. He brought the process to an impasse instead of advancing it. Similar actors took on a role in Oslo, too. Again, it has yielded no result. We have to handle our own affairs now,” Erdoğan added.
(Cihan/Today's Zaman)