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ANKARA, Aug 18 (AFP) - 10h36 - Turkey's leading
Kurdish politicians urged the rebel Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) Thursday to declare a ceasefire
to help find a peaceful settlement to the Kurdish
conflict.
The appeal of the Democratic Society Movement (DTH),
a formation which groups Turkey's most prominent
Kurdish political figures and is soon expected to
formally become a party, came in the eve of a news
conference by the rebels, scheduled for Friday in
Brussels.
"It is an urgent, vital and general expectation from
the PKK... to take as soon as possible a decision
for a ceasefire, without conditions and time limits,
in order to ensure a democratic ground for
discussing the (Kurdish) problem, free from a
climate of violence," the statement said
In a landmark speech last week, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged the Kurdish
conflict would be resolved with "more democracy"
despite an alarming increase of violence by the PKK,
which Ankara considers a terrorist group.
Erdogan admitted that Ankara mistreated its Kurds in
the past and said the government was open to
dialogue with the civic society to resolve the
conflict.
"We see the remarks of the prime minister as a
courageous, determined and consistent political
opening that can be translated into action," the DTH
said.
The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group also by
the United States and the European Union, has
markedly stepped up violence over the past few
months after calling off a five-year unilateral
truce in June 2004 that had brought relative peace
to Turkey's turbulent mainly Kurdish southeast.
The PKK, which argues that Ankara's reforms to
expand Kurdish freedoms are inadequate, has said it
will consider a new ceasefire if the army also stops
military operations against the rebels.
The Kurdish conflict has claimed some 37,000 lives
since 1984, when the PKK took up arms for Kurdish
self-rule in the southeast, ravaging the region's
already meager economy and forcing a mass migration
into the urban west.
The brutal state response to PKK violence also led
to gross human rights breaches on both sides and
opened a wide confidence gap between Ankara and the
Kurds, who make up about a fifth of the country's
70-million population.
Keen to boost its bid to join the EU, Ankara has
ended 15 years of emergency rule in the southeast
and allowed the Kurdish language to be taught at
private courses and used in public broadcasts over
the past several years.
Friday's news conference is scheduled to be held by
Zubeyir Aydar, the head of KONGRA-GEL, PKK's
political wing.
AFP
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