Kurdish political figure indirectly supports presidential system

Leyla Zana, the Diyarbakır deputy for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), indicated her indirect support for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's campaign to institute a presidential system in Turkey, saying: "Since the beginning of the 2000s we have been saying that this system cannot work, but nobody listened to us. It is good news to hear that they understood the issue and listened to us. Regardless of who becomes the president, the content of the system is important for us, for all the values of these people, for all differences."

In a speech before a meeting in Tunceli on Thursday, Zana brought up the statement made by Erdoğan in which he said he wanted 400 deputies to be able to switch, without opposition, to a presidential system from the current system, which he said had turned into a "rag-bag," saying: "Indeed, this narrow, single-minded understanding, which sees no color but black and white and does not even learn nature's lesson, has finalized its term."

Zana is a well-known Kurdish political figure who has long fought for the rights of Kurds and women and has been imprisoned in the past. She had even paid unprecedented visits to Erdoğan in 2012 during his time as prime minister, and has remarked that she believes Erdoğan will be able to solve the Kurdish issue, which has been ongoing for decades now.

"If we take on the individuals, we will forget what the system had done to us. Our problem is not with the people [in the system], it is actually with this system" she said.