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DIYARBAKIR, Turkey: A leader of the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) late Sunday called for unity in
the outlawed group as it seeks to resume its armed
campaign in Turkey after years of isolation in
northern Iraq, a pro-Kurdish television channel
reported.
"There have been disagreements within the
organization and we apologize to honest members who
broke from our ranks," senior cadre Duran Kalkan, in
a rare act of PKK self-criticism, told the
Europe-based Roj TV monitored here late Sunday.
"I call on the disgruntled and the offended to come
back," Kalkan said.
His appeal came after about 40 ranking militants -
including Osman Ocalan, the estranged brother of PKK
founder Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life
sentence in a Turkish jail - broke off from the
armed group and set up their own party.
But Kalkan appeared to exclude from his appeal Osman
Ocalan, a long-time confidant of his brother and
once a senior PKK commander who dropped out last
summer and formed the Patriotic Democratic Party in
Mosul, northern Iraq, according to Turkish press
reports.
"This needs to be taken seriously. Actions such as
this, which harm unity, are definitely dangerous,"
Kalkan said. "Our attitude toward traitors is very
clear." Ocalan's departure was a further blow to the
PKK, now renamed KONGRA-GEL, which was already
weakened by factionalism.
Should Ocalan and his breakaway group threaten the
PKK, Kalkan warned, they would be the "losers."
The PKK took up arms against Turkey in 1984 for
self-rule in the predominantly Kurdish east and
southeast of the country in a 15-year conflict that
claimed about 37,000 lives.
In 1999, the PKK announced a unilateral cease-fire
and withdrew into northern Iraq. But the group ended
the truce on June 1, threatening to launch attacks
across Turkey.
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