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| Europe |
| Kurdish rebels urge Turkey to accept peace plan |
| 2009-08-16 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] Kurdish rebels waging a separatist campaign against Turkey called on the government Friday to accept a peace plan their jailed leader is due to announce, a pro-Kurdish news agency. "We...call on the Turkish state and government to respect the political will of the Kurdish people" who have sided with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its leader Abdullah Ocalan, the rebel group said in a statement. The PKK "will support to the end" Ocalan's roadmap for a democratic solution, the Firat news agency quoted the statement as saying. Ocalan, serving a life sentence on a prison island in northwest Turkey, had been expected to announce his proposals on Saturday, the 25th anniversary of the start of an armed campaign against Ankara. But after his Istanbul-based lawyers met him Friday on Imrali Island -- where he has been held in solitary confinement since his arrest and conviction in 1999 -- a spokesman said the plan had not been finalized. "The roadmap is not ready yet," Cengiz Kapmaz, spokesman for Ocalan's defense team, told AFP. "The lawyers will return to the island on Wednesday." Ocalan's expected plan coincides with a government effort to draw up a package of reforms to win over the Kurdish community and encourage the rebels to lay down arms. Kurdish activists and politicians have called on the government to take Ocalan's proposals into consideration but in a newspaper interview last month Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu dismissed the idea, saying the solution would come from Ankara. Ankara categorically rejects dialogue with the PKK, which it lists as a terrorist organization. Eager to boost its bid to join the European Union, Ankara has in recent years granted the Kurds a series of cultural freedoms, including the inauguration of a Kurdish-language public television channel in January. Kurdish activists however say the reforms are inadequate and argue that a general amnesty is crucial to encourage PKK fighters to lay down arms, a proposal the government has so far rejected. |
| Posted by:Fred |