Peace talks get highest support in Southeast

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Public opinion polls indicate that the pre-dominantly Kurdish region of Southeast Anatolia heavily backs the current resolution process, while the Black Sea and Aegean provinces are listed as least enthusiastic supporters of the government’s efforts to negotiate with the outlawed terror organization.

Some 81 percent of people living in the southeast support the efforts, according to polls released by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) during Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s meeting with AKP lawmakers from the Marmara region. Support for the process in the Black Sea and Aegean regions is considerably lower, languishing at around 40 percent.

Warning to party officials

Erdoğan has instructed his party officials to pay particular attention to these two regions, sources told the Hürriyet Daily News. Senior government members and party officials are thus expected to hold frequent meetings there over the course of the process, starting this weekend, they said.

Erdoğan could also attend one or two such meetings if his program allows him to.

“Overall support for the process is 64 percent, and we are proceeding in a right way,” Erdoğan said to the deputies, according to an AKP official who was present at the meeting. The prime minister called on his deputies to give support to the work of the wise people group and provide necessary logistical assistance if need be. “The opposition is trying to block the process, but our people continue to support us,” he said, urging them not to be provoked by the opposition throughout the process.