Turkey's Kurd rebels reject appeal to lay down arms
The Kurds will be the instrument by which the US and Israel attempt to gain control of the region but I am also wondering if they will be used as a means to punish Turkey.
-Am
16 Jun 2005 16:15:53 GMT
Source: Reuters
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, June 16 (Reuters) - A leading member of Turkey's banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was quoted on Thursday as rejecting an appeal from leading Turkish intellectuals for the rebel organisation to lay down its arms.
A group of 100 intellectuals including best-selling novelist Orhan Pamuk issued a statement on Wednesday demanding the PKK halt all violence "without preconditions" and urging Ankara to seek a lasting peace in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey.
"You cannot ask just one side to disarm ... You have to ask it of both sides. Only then would it make sense," the Europe-based Mezopotamya news agency, which is close to the rebels, quoted senior PKK member Murat Karayilan as saying.
He said the government bore responsibility for the continued violence because it had showed no interest in a dialogue.
Dozens of people have died in the past few months in clashes between the guerrillas and Turkish security forces, stirring fears of a return to the kind of large-scale violence which plagued southeast Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s.
Ankara blames the PKK for the death of more than 30,000 people since the organisation began its violent campaign for an independent Kurdish state in 1984.
The violence largely subsided after the 1999 capture of rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is now serving a life prison sentence. But clashes sharply increased again after the PKK called off a unilateral five-year ceasefire in 2004.
Turkish newspapers on Thursday quoted EU ambassadors based in Ankara as expressing concern over the increased violence in southeast Turkey.
The papers said the envoys had urged Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan during a dinner earlier this week not to rely only on military means to tackle the problems of the southeast but to devise economic policies to cut poverty and unemployment.
In response to the envoys' criticism, the deputy head of Turkey's powerful General Staff, General Ilker Basbug, said the prime responsibility of the security services was to fight "terrorists" and he vowed that they would continue to do so.
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