Gul: Turkey has matured for immediate action on Kurdish issueMay 27, 2009 - 21:08 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - "You can refer to it as either the 'Kurdish issue' or 'Southeast issue', but it is the most important problem facing Turkey," Gul told reporters in Kyrgyzstan, where he met Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and Prime Minister Igor Chudinov. "This issue will grow larger the longer we take to solve it," he added. He also said all Turkish political parties, including the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP, need to contribute to efforts to solve this issue. "This is everybody's problem. Everybody needs to be constructive and act as facilitator in order to solve this issue in a maturity that befits Turkey," he said. The issue has been high on Turkey's agenda since Gul said earlier this month that the country has never been closer to a solution to the decades-long Kurdish issue. He also said any solution should not be left only in the hands of the government, urging for contributions from opposition parties. Gul's remarks were interpreted as an olive branch extended to the opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP, whose leader, Deniz Baykal, previously criticized the president and the government for disclosing the latest developments on the Kurdish problem. The president gave the first hint of a resolution to the Kurdish problem while traveling to Iran in March. "Good things will happen on the Kurdish issue," he said, declining to provide details, Hurriyet reported. Top stories Authorities said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during Azerbaijan’s offensive. In 2023, the Azerbaijani government will increase the country’s defense budget by more than 1.1 billion manats ($650 million). The bill, published on Monday, is designed to "eliminate the shortcomings of an unreasonably broad interpretation of the key concept of "compatriot". The earthquake caused a temporary blackout, damaged many buildings and closed a number of rural roads. Partner news | Russia warns Armenia against “falling into West’s trap” Zakharova maintained, however, that anything that will benefit the people of Armenia can only be welcomed. CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. Ucom launches network modernization efforts in few regions of Armenia In particular, on March 28, the legacy Mobile Switching Subsystem will be replaced with a new one. |