Turkey says Syria deal leaves Ankara 'no excuses' on peace process

Turkey's pro-Kurdish DEM Party said on Monday that the Turkish government had no more "excuses" to delay a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) now that a landmark integration deal was achieved in neighbouring Syria.



On Sunday in Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) agreed to come under the control of authorities in Damascus - a move that Ankara had long sought as integral to its own peace effort with the PKK.



"For more than a year, the government has presented the SDF's integration with Damascus as the biggest obstacle to the process," Tuncer Bakirhan, co-leader of the DEM Party, told Reuters, in some of the party's first public comments on the deal in Syria.



"The government will no longer have any excuses left. Now it is the government's turn to take concrete steps."



Bakirhan cautioned President Tayyip Erdogan's government against concluding that the rolling back Kurdish territorial gains in Syria negated the need for a peace process in Turkey.