Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with the Kurdish politician Ahmet Turk Wednesday suggesting a move towards reconciliation between the government and the main Kurdish political group, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), which Turk chairs, according to a report in the Hurriyet newspaper.
"We are in the middle of a process, and I believe our hopes for the future have increased with today’s meeting," Erdogan told reporters.
Erdogan had refused to meet with the DTP since the 2007 elections because it did not condemn militant activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Turkey and the United States consider the militant group a terrorist organization.
The government's so-called "Kurdish move" is an attempt to resolve decades-old tensions between Kurds, who constitute at least a 12 million-strong minority in Turkey, and the Turkish government.
About 40,000 have died in 25 years of fighting between the PKK and the Turkish government. PKK guerrillas based in Northern Iraq were also a point of contention with the United States and the Iraqi government. Just this week, two PKK guerrillas were killed in eastern Turkey.
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