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PKK offers new ceasefire, peace talks with
Ankara
2.6.2005
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LIJWA, Iraq, June 1 (AFP) - 17h04 - The rebel
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) said Wednesday it was
ready to declare a ceasefire and offered to begin
peace talks with Ankara.
"We appeal to the Turkish government, asking it to
end military operations in order to open the path of
dialogue, and we are ready, on our side, to decree a
ceasefire," said leading party official Murad
Karialan.
The outlawed rebel group, which last year called off
a five-year-old unilateral ceasefire, has been
holding a congress in the northern Iraqi village of
Lijwa, close to the border with Iran.
The group waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish
self-rule in southeast Turkey between 1984 and 1999.
The conflict has claimed some 37,000 lives.
The Turkish army warned in May that an increasing
number of PKK militants were sneaking back into
Turkey from neighbouring northern Iraq where they
had retreated after the 1999 truce.
The PKK, which describes itself as Marxist-Leninist,
proclaimed a unilateral ceasefire in September 1999
after its leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in
Nairobi, tried and sentenced to death.
The sentence was later commuted to life in jail.
AFP
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