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KurdistanObserver.com
Kurdish Rebels Reject Appeal To Lay
Down Arms
DIYARBAKIR, (Southern Kurdistan), June 16 (Reuters and AFP) - 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.
Also, Kurdish politicians on
Thursday joined calls on Kurdish rebels to lay down their arms, following a
marked increase in deadly violence in the country's southeast after the
militants called off a five-year ceasefire.
The appeal came in a joint statement by 14 prominent Kurdish figures,
including Leyla Zana, a former lawmaker and internationally renowned
campaigner for Kurdish rights, and Tuncer Bakirhan, the head of Turkey's
main pro-Kurdish party, DEHAP.
"We are also worried over the atmosphere of increasing confrontation and
we hope the clashes will end in the shortest possible time," the statement
said.
"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.
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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