We will not allow the peace process against the PKK to be sabotaged or delayed, Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said on Monday, adding that a “rational and cautious” approach will be adopted.
“I want to underline that if we experience an important process today and if a historical step is to be taken, if we have reached a point where we end the aims of those using terrorism under pretexts for their own sake, if we reached a stage to resolve differences, it is because we paid a heavy price,” Güler said during iftar with martyrs families in the capital Ankara.
The minister also said that confusion should not be caused through announcements such as a cease-fire, which did not take place in jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan's call.
The terrorist group on Saturday declared a cease-fire with Türkiye following a landmark call by Öcalan asking the group to disband and end more than four decades of terror.
After several meetings with Öcalan at his island prison, the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) on Thursday relayed his appeal for the PKK to lay down its weapons and convene a congress to announce the organization's dissolution.
After the last round of peace talks collapsed in 2015, no further contact was made with the PKK until October when a nationalist ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan offered a surprise peace gesture if Öcalan rejected violence.
Erdoğan on Friday said Öcalan's appeal was a "historic opportunity," adding Türkiye would "keep a close watch" to make sure the talks to end the insurgency were "brought to a successful conclusion."
