Turkey seeks truce with Kurdish rebels

— Turkey is holding talks with the Kurdish rebels’ jailed leader to press the autonomy-seeking guerrilla group to relinquish arms and end its decades-long conflict, a senior official was quoted as saying Sunday.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief adviser, Yalcin Akdogan, insisted in an interview with Taraf newspaper that the discussions were aimed at persuading the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, to lay down its arms for good. He said Turkey was not seeking any kind of a temporary truce, similar to those the party has declared in the past and which critics say allow the group to recoup before resuming attacks on Turkish military targets.

“The basic aim of the meetings is not a temporary ceasefire but to push the organization to put down its arms,” Taraf quoted Akdogan as saying.

Akdogan’s comments came days after Erdogan also said Turkey’s intelligence agency has resumed discussions with rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life term on a prison island off Istanbul. “As long as we see a light we’ll continue to talk. If there is no light, we’ll stop there,” Erdogan said, without providing details on the discussions.

Turkey - which has been torn between a desire for reconciliation with Kurds and its stated aim of battling a group it regards as terrorists - has admitted holding secret discussions with Ocalan and other party members in recent years. Officials have said those talks failed.

A surge in violence this year has killed hundreds of rebels, Turkish security force members and civilians.

Ocalan, imprisoned since 1999, is believed to still hold sway over the party. Last month, at Ocalan’s request, hundreds of Kurdish prisoners ended a hunger strike they had started to demand more rights for Kurds and improved jail conditions.

Front Section, Pages 5 on 12/31/2012

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