PKK should leave guns and peace talks should be revived: Top business organization

Turkey's top business organization has underlined the overriding need for social peace, calling on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to abandon arms amid a return to peace talks.

The head of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜS?AD), Cansen Ba?aran-Symes, said the terror problem should not be allowed to destroy the peaceful coexistence of the Turkish people, voicing her hopes about the revival of peaceful days again. 

"The ongoing conflicts should be stopped immediately, the PKK should lay down its arms and peaceful resolution process should be revived again through the opening of political channels," she said at the 46th Ordinary General Meeting of the association on Feb. 11. 

The head of TÜS?AD's High Advisory Council, Tuncay Özilhan, also underlined the importance of measures that will strengthen social cohesion and togetherness in his speech at the meeting, calling for the end of terror and violence. 

"If we divide each other, we cannot fight with problems," he said, noting that a new constitution should be designed to accelerate Turkey's accession to the European Union. 

Ba?aran-Symes noted that the whole world had entered 2016 with rising uncertainties in economic terms.
 
"We have been in the eighth year since the latest global crisis first erupted, but we cannot say the worst has been left behind. The global economy has contracted by 30 percent since the crisis," she said, addressing the fragilities of the Turkish economy. 

"Turkey has been suffering from lower foreign demand as it is an open economy. We have repeatedly said the country needs to grow in higher terms so as to maintain and strengthen social cohesion. Turkey, as a country which has yet to complete its process of...