No amnesty plan for Kurdistan Workers' Party rebels

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Turkish prime minister says the country has no plans to consider amnesty for Kurdish rebels in order to end a 24-year insurgency.



Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an interview with NTV television on Friday denied media reports that the government might consider an amnesty for the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community.



He said that an amnesty 'is out of the question'. ''Only voluntary disarmament is acceptable for Turkey.''



The PKK, which took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, has long taken refuge in the mountains of autonomous Kurdish-run northern Iraq. They have used this area as a launching pad for cross-border attacks on Turkish territory.



Iraq's government and the Iraqi Kurds have pledged to help Turkey against the PKK and urged the rebels to disarm or leave Iraq.



Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, earlier this month said Kurdish groups from regional countries would gather in northern Iraq in late April or May and issue a joint appeal for the PKK to lay down arms. It is not yet clear if PKK representatives would be invited to the meeting.