Ankara -
Kurdish rebels will no longer target civilians and want to extend a unilateral truce indefinitely if Turkey demonstrates a commitment to dialogue, a rebel leader was quoted as saying on Thursday.
“We are actually in favour of a permanent ceasefire... We are waiting. We have not decided yet,” Murat Karayilan, a top commander of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), told the Radikal newspaper.
The PKK, which has waged a bloody 26-year campaign for self-rule in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey, announced a unilateral truce on August 13, due to expire at the end of October.
Karayilan said the “ball is in the opposite court” in efforts to end the conflict and urged Ankara to demonstrate its commitment to a peaceful solution.
“Stopping (military) operations (against the PKK) could be one step. Advancing the dialogue process with Ocalan is important,” he told Radikal, referring to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Boosted by its victory in a September 12 referendum on constitutional reform, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has launched a cautious initiative aimed at cajoling the PKK into laying down arms.
The authorities appear to have already included Ocalan in the effort, with his lawyers acting as intermediaries and holding meetings with him in his cell on the prison island of Imrali.
The rare effort at dialogue is controversial in a country where many see the PKK as public enemy number one and fiercely oppose reconciliation moves as concession to violence.
Speaking at a PKK hideout in the Qandil mountains in neighbouring northern Iraq, Karayilan admitted “mistakes” over PKK attacks against civilians and pledged to stop them.
“If the right time comes, we may even apologise and try to make up for those mistakes,” Radikal quoted him as saying.
PKK militants are now better “educated” not to harm civilians, he said, adding that such attacks “will never happen” again.
“This is my message to (Turkish) society,” he said. - Sapa-AFP