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31-12-2024
ANKARA/ SANLIURFA: Turkey announced on Sunday a $14 billion regional development plan that aims to reduce the economic gap between its mainly Kurdish southeast region and the rest of the country.
The announcement comes amid increased hopes for an end to a decades-long insurgency waged by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in southeast Turkey as well as the advent of a new leadership in neighboring Syria with cordial ties to Ankara.
The eastern and southeastern provinces of Turkey have long lagged behind other regions of the country in most economic indicators including gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, partly as a result of the insurgency.
Turkish Industry Minister Fatih Kacir told reporters in the southeastern city of Sanliurfa that the government would spend a total 496.2 billion lira ($14.15 billion) on 198 projects across the region in the period to 2028.
“With the implementation of the projects, we anticipate an additional 49,000 lira ($1,400) increase in annual income per capita in the region,” he added.
According to 2023 data, the per capita income of Sanliurfa stood at $4,971, well below the national average of $13,243.
Regarding the prospects for peace in southeast Turkey, two Turkish lawmakers met the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan on Saturday, the first such visit in a nearly a decade, and they quoted him as indicating he might be ready to call on the group’s militants to lay down their weapons.
The visit followed a call by a close ally of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Ocalan to end the PKK’s 40-year insurgency, in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.
The conflict between the Turkish state and PKK, now centred on northern Iraq, was mainly focused in southeast Turkey in the past.
“Terrorism has caused great harm to eastern and southeastern regions of the country… A terror-free Turkey will create great benefit to the region,” Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz said on Sunday at the event in Sanliurfa.
Turkey and Western countries classify the PKK as a terrorist organization.
Yilmaz also referred to recent developments in Syria, where Islamist rebels backed by Turkey took power this month after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad and his flight to Russia.
“The opportunities that will come with the new era in Syria will increase the welfare of our entire country. Our southeastern region will benefit more from these developments,” Yilmaz said.
The jailed leader of Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, has been quoted as indicating he may be prepared to call for militants to lay down arms, after a key ally of President Tayyip Erdogan urged him to end the group’s decades-old insurgency.
Two parliamentarians from the pro-Kurdish DEM Party met Ocalan for talks on his island prison on Saturday, in the first such visit nearly in a decade. DEM requested the visit after a key Erdogan ally expanded on a proposal to end the 40-year-old conflict between the state and Ocalan’s PKK.
“I am ready to take (the) necessary positive step and make the call,” Ocalan was quoted as saying, according to a statement by the MPs on Sunday.
Ocalan did not specify what the call would be but his comments came after the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, Devlet Bahceli, said Ocalan should make a call for the militants to lay down arms.
DEM requested the visit soon after Bahceli expanded on a proposal to end the conflict. (Int’l News Desk)
