ISTANBUL
Monday’s dailies focused on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest comments on Turkey’s Kurdish issues plus U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s view on Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
"There is no Kurdish problem," was VATAN’s headline, reporting on President Erdogan’s speech during his visit to the western Balikesir province.
Addressing the country’s Kurdish citizens, Erdogan said: "What is missing? You [Kurds] have been a president, prime minister and minister. You are in the bureaucracy and Turkish army. What more do you want?" President Erdogan said, according to the daily.
The president’s comments come after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu participated in a ruling AK Party meeting in Istanbul on Sunday where SABAH reports that he called on mothers to support the Kurdish "solution process."
"We have entered a new phase in the solution process with the call to lay down arms. The process belongs to the nation. More than anyone, it belongs to mothers of this country," the Turkish premier said, according the daily.
The solution process officially began in 2013 to end Turkey’s decades-old conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of PKK, called Feb 28 for members to hold a congress to discuss disarmament.
Details on a letter being written by Ocalan have begun to emerge in Turkish dailies.
"It is going to be historic," was VATAN’s headline Monday. Sirri Sureyya Onder, a member of parliament for the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party, or HDP, told the daily that Ocalan is writing a letter expected to be read during the annual March 21 Nevruz festival in Turkey’s majority-Kurdish southeastern Diyarbakir province.
"[His] previous two letters were calls for peace. This letter will frame a universal perspective for a democratic republic," Onder said.
In other news, HURRIYET reported on John Kerry’s remarks on Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. "have to negotiate in the end" with Assad, the secretary of state told CBS News in an interview Sunday.
HURRIYET stressed that Kerry’s comments followed remarks by John Brennan, the director of the CIA who said Friday: "The United States does not want to see a chaotic collapse of the Syrian regime."
"The rise of ISIL [another name for Daesh] has softened the U.S. government stance against Assad," HURRIYET claimed. The unrest created by constant fighting and subsequent instability in Iraq and Syria paved the way for Daesh to gain a foothold in the region, on which it has declared what it calls a cross-border Islamic caliphate.
The daily also reported that three U.K. teens allegedly bound for Syria to join Daesh were detained Saturday in an Istanbul airport and sent back to Britain by Turkish police. U.K. police issued a statement Sunday saying the three males were arrested on "suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts."
In economic news, debate over the Turkish Central Bank still dominates newspaper coverage. Cemil Ertem, key advisor to the Turkish president, criticized the bank in an exclusive interview with SABAH.
"The traditional understanding of the bank is over," Ertem claimed.
However, in an interview with financial paper DUNYA, Pawel Samecki, a member of the Polish Central Bank’s board and former member of the European Commission said: "[Turkish Central Bank Governor] Erdem Basci and his deputies are serious economists. They have a close eye on developments in the world and analyze them well," Samecki said, according the daily.
The debate over the bank has kicked off after Erdogan criticized it for its tight monetary policy. After successive criticisms by Erdogan, Central Bank Governor Basci gave an economic briefing to the president last Wednesday.
