Turkey's Erdogan hails 'progress' in bid to resume Kurdish talks 

ANKARA, Jan 16: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday said "significant progress" had been made in efforts to revive dialogue between Ankara and the banned PKK militant group. 

"Significant progress has been made towards this goal," Erdogan said after three members of Turkey's pro-Kurdish DEM opposition party met with jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan then briefed the parties in parliament. 

"We see that the contacts made by the delegation were productive," he said, saying Turkey was "cautiously optimistic". 
The contact with Ocalan came after the head of Turkey's nationalist MHP party, Devlet Bahceli, extended him a shock olive branch in October, inviting him to parliament to disband the PKK and even mooting an early release. 

The move won Erdogan's backing.     —AFP