HDP questions Erdo?an's remarks while ray of hope appears in Ankara

A co-leader of Turkey's Kurdish problem-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has raised question marks over President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's conviction that Turkey has had no Kurdish problem, while also challenging Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu to a public debate over a presidential system and autonomy.

"The president says that 'There is no Kurdish problem.' So it means that the Kurdish problem has finished in an instant, just like that. When was it resolved? Kurds are in the dark," HDP's co-leader Selahattin Demirta? said on Jan. 7 during a rally held in the eastern Anatolian province of Van.

A day ago, Erdo?an argued that Turkey has no Kurdish problem, only a terrorism problem, while maintaining his bellicose rhetoric on the conflagration in southeastern Anatolia.

"But in Turkey, there are those who have one-track minds: 'Kurdish problem and Kurdish problem, Kurdish problem and Kurdish problem.' You cannot get anyone to buy it," Erdo?an said. 

The president's remarks came as violence between the security forces and militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which reignited in the summer of 2015, shattering a fragile peace process and a two-and-a-half-year de facto period of non-conflict, flared. 

"They assumed that the HDP would be successful in elections if the peace process had resumed," Demirta? said, referring to the fact that violence escalated after the June 7 parliamentary elections that were unprecedentedly followed by snap elections on Nov. 1.

"That's how the process was cut off. Did we give up dialogue? No. Let's discuss around a table, let's sadden each other but let's not have those young bodies carried in coffins. People are dying every day but the gentleman comes up and says 'I...