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ANKARA, Aug 19 (AFP) - 12h12 - Turkish officials
refused to comment Friday on a decision by the rebel
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for a one-month
ceasefire, saying that the actions of a "terrorist"
group are not up for evaluation.
"It is out of the question for us to comment on this
issue," Akif Beki, the spokesman of Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told AFP.
A senior foreign ministry official, who requested
anonymity, said that "it is not possible for us" to
comment on the August 20-September 20 ceasefire,
announced earlier in a written statement issued in
Brussels.
"Those people are terrorists and it is not possible
for us to qualify their actions either as positive
or negative," he said.
Ankara, which considers the PKK a terrorist
organization, has meticulously avoided any move that
could imply accepting the group as an interlocutor.
It categorically rejects dialogue with the PKK and
has banned several pro-Kurdish political parties for
links with the rebels.
The PKK, blacklisted as a terror group also by the
United States and the European Union, has markedly
stepped up violence in the past several months after
it called off a 1999 unilateral truce in June 2004
on the grounds that Ankara's reforms to expand
Kurdish freedoms were insufficient.
AFP
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