Date for meeting between president and HDP MP to be set

ANKARA

AA photo

Efforts to set a date for a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and leading Kurdish politician Leyla Zana are underway, Erdoğan’s spokesperson has said.

“The chief of the cabinet is also following the issue of the meeting with Ms. Leyla Zana,” presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın said on Jan. 27, in response to questions at a press conference.

“Our friends are conducting work to have this reception at a convenient time when both our president’s and Ms. Leyla’s programs are available,” Kalın added.

Erdoğan himself made it public last week that Zana, an Ağrı deputy of the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), had made a request to meet him, noting his approach to the request was affirmative.

HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş said on Jan. 22 that Zana’s demand to meet Erdoğan was not done on behalf of the party, but rather was a personal request conveyed seven or eight months ago. However, Demirtaş said the party welcomed any initiative paving the way to an end to the ongoing clashes in southeastern Turkey. 

Zana’s request came at a time when the clashes between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkey’s security forces have intensified, with several towns in southeastern Turkey under months-long curfews. 

Zana and Erdoğan first met on June 30, 2012, when she told Erdoğan security-based policies employed for years in an attempt to resolve the Kurdish issue had borne no fruit.