Erdoğan chairs Cabinet meeting for terror-free Türkiye, economy

The Cabinet meeting set to be held in Ankara on Monday will be chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, marking the first since he returned from Kazakhstan, where he attended high-level meetings and oversaw the signing of cooperation deals.

The terror-free Türkiye initiative and economy will be among the topics discussed by ministers, media outlets reported on Sunday.

On foreign policy, ministers will discuss possible negotiations between the U.S. and neighboring Iran on the fate of their lingering conflict and Türkiye’s efforts to ensure a lasting cease-fire. Ministers will also talk about the impact of the deadlock in the Strait of Hormuz on the Turkish economy. Another topic will be policies for the diversification of energy resources.

Ministers will also discuss the latest stage of the terror-free Türkiye initiative and legal steps to speed up the process, based on reports of security forces monitoring the disarmament of the terrorist group PKK. The initiative, which appears delayed, is expected to pick up pace again within weeks, media reports said on Sunday, referring to the completion of a report on the surveillance of the PKK’s disarmament. If the disarmament is confirmed, the Turkish Parliament will likely start working on legal amendments for the future of PKK members, including lenient sentences for surrendering members as well as early release for convicted members of the terrorist group under certain conditions. Terror-free Türkiye is the brainchild of Devlet Bahçeli, leader of government ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), who recently suggested that the PKK’s jailed ringleader, Abdullah Öcalan, should be given a new status to advance the process, and Türkiye should establish a “Peace Coordination” office for further legitimacy of the process.

President Erdoğan on Saturday said Türkiye desired to divest funds allocated for counterterrorism to “expenditures for education, science, employment, transportation and technology.” Addressing a youth event in northwestern Türkiye’s Kocaeli, Erdoğan said that the ultimate goal of terror-free Türkiye was ensuring peace and the safety of future generations.

The Cabinet meeting will also concentrate on the outcome of the informal summit of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), which the president attended earlier this week in Kazakhstan with a delegation of ministers and top officials, as well as bilateral relations with Kazakhstan.

Speaking to reporters aboard his return flight from Kazakhstan on Friday, Erdoğan said that Türkiye and Kazakhstan elevated bilateral ties through a new Declaration on Eternal Friendship and Expanded Strategic Partnership signed during his visit to Astana and Turkistan. He said he held comprehensive talks with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on bilateral relations as well as regional and global developments during the sixth meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council.

“We confirmed our satisfaction with the course of our relations and our determination to deepen cooperation in every field,” Erdoğan said, noting that 12 agreements were signed in various sectors alongside the joint declaration.

Highlighting growing economic ties, Erdoğan said nearly 5,500 Turkish companies have invested around $6 billion in Kazakhstan across sectors ranging from construction and finance to tourism and information technology, while Turkish contractors have undertaken projects worth nearly $30 billion.

He said the two countries aim to increase bilateral trade volume from $10 billion to $15 billion and stressed the importance of energy cooperation, including the transportation of Kazakh oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

On the OTS summit, where leaders signed the Turkistan Declaration, Erdoğan said the declaration “aims to make our existing cooperation more effective through digitalization and artificial intelligence opportunities.”

“Through the declaration, we also agreed on the need to strengthen institutional integration processes among Turkic states in line with the requirements of the digital age,” he added.

Another topic on the agenda of the Cabinet is the upcoming Eid al-Adha, or Qurban Bayram, a Muslim holiday which will be marked next week. The ministers will discuss measures for the occasion where hundreds of thousands of people travel between cities. Traffic accidents at the peak of Eid travel claim dozens of lives every year. The Eid is also an occasion where the faithful slaughter sacrificial animals and an occasion of mass movement of animals, especially cows and sheep, between the marketplaces of the cities.

DAILYSABAH