Ankara - Turkish Daily News 
Feb 11, 2002
The National Police Headquarters have said that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was ready to launch a campaign of Kurdish identity and education as part of its plans to become a political force, Anatolia news agency said. 

The agency said reports by the national police and intelligence services named the new campaign as "I want to be registered as a Kurd on my identity card." The campaign included demands for Kurdish education in private courses as well, it quoted the reports as saying. The first applications for private Kurdish courses would be made in the eastern town of Batman and the southern town of Icel, it said. 

Some 2,000 university students were detained all over the country last month for submitting petitions demanding education in Kurdish at colleges. Authorities rejected the first Kurdish education campaign as a bid by the PKK and many among those detained are expected to face court cases on separatism charges. 

The PKK took arms in 1984 for self rule in the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast, but changed track after its leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured and sentenced to death in 1999. The armed conflict between the PKK and Turkish troops has cost more than 30,000 lives. Turkish officials dub the PKK's overtures as a move to save Ocalan from execution.