QANDIL,— Kurdish militants demanded concrete steps from Turkish authorities to advance a peace process on Tuesday, warning that otherwise its future was at risk.

“Our movement is at a stage of serious and critical thinking and of taking new decisions,” the KCK, a political umbrella group linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, said in a statement published on a website close to the organisation.

“Concrete steps should be taken by the (ruling) AK Party. Otherwise the peace process is at a very critical and dangerous stage, and near ending.”

Meanwhile the Turkish government discussed in a cabinet meeting in prime ministry office the ongoing peace process between Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Haber Turk said in a report.

Headed by Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu, the meeting discussed recent pro-Kurdish HDP party delegation visit to Qandil Mountains, the PKK base, and the HDP recent statement released after the meeting as well as the debated security package that is to be ratified in Turkish parliament.

No further detail has been released over the six-hour meeting, but a joint HDP and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) statement on the peace process is expected.

The Turkish government launched talks with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is in jail on an island near Istanbul, in 2012, in a bid to end a three-decade armed struggle that has killed 40,000 people and stunted the development of Turkish Kurdistan in the Kurdish southeast of the country.

Since it was established in 1984 the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state, but now limited its demands to establish an autonomous Kurdish region and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds, who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 75-million population but have long been denied basic political and cultural rights, its goal to political autonomy. A large Turkey’s Kurdish community openly sympathise with PKK rebels.

The PKK is considered as ‘terrorist’ organization by Ankara and U.S. The PKK continues to be on the blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which overturned a decision to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its political wing on the European Union’s terror list.

Failure to strike a deal could be a thorn in the side of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who needs the AK Party which he founded to secure a large majority in a national election in June to push through plans for an executive presidency.

He has invested considerable political capital in the peace talks despite fierce nationalist opposition.

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