"In future, we will take decisive steps to realize our vision for Turkey and an entire region without terror," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in his New Year's Day speech.

These words were a reference to the current reconciliation process between Turkey's government and Kurds, which was initiated about three months ago by Erdogan's coalition partner Devlet Bahceli, chairman of the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

In October, Bahceli mastered a political turnaround when he shook hands with politicians from the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM).

Beforehand, Bahceli had claimed that the left-wing, pro-Kurdish DEM was an extension of the banned organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and should be banned.

In the past, Bahceli's party had also called for the reintroduction of the death penalty, primarily to execute the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The paramilitary PKK is classified as a terrorist organization in the EU and the US and has been in armed conflict with the Turkish state since 1984.

Around 40,000 people are said to have been killed during the violent conflict between Turkey and the Kurdish PKK between 1984 and 2009.

Ocalan, who founded the PKK in 1978, has........

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