Turkey's solution process for Kurdish issue back on track

Turkey's solution process on the Kurdish issue is back on track and running smoothly, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Monday.

Davutoglu made the remarks before reporters at Ankara's Esenboga Airport upon leaving for the Macedonian capital of Skopje.

The Turkish prime minister said Turkey always regarded the solution process as a natural consequence of democratization, adding that "our government has never displayed a doubt or hesitant attitude about the solution process."

The prime minister's remarks followed a meeting earlier on Monday between Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan and pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party politicians.

Ankara launched the process last year in a bid to end the decades-long conflict with the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which so far claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people.

Turkey's unwillingness to help Kurds in the Kurdish-populated Syrian city of Ayn al-Arab, also know as Kobane, prompted Turkey's Kurds to stage protests against the government in over 30 provinces.

The imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan has insisted on legal guarantees to safeguard the settlement process to the Kurdish issue.

He pointed out that a solution to the conflict could be reached within four to five months if the process is handled with seriousness and commitment.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and other countries, took up arms in 1984 in an attempt to create an ethnic homeland for the Kurds in southeast Turkey. Since then, more than 40,000 people were killed in conflicts involving the group.

The Turkish authorities started peace negotiations with the PKK in October 2012, which led to a cease-fire in March 2013, but PKK fighters started to return to their strongholds in northern Iraq in May last year.

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