Monday, 10 December, 2007

ANKARA: Turkey is considering amnesty for Kurdish rebels whose separatist drive has claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying yesterday.

Turkish riot police shoot at supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who were attacking with Molotov cocktails during an unauthorised demonstration as they clash in Istanbul.

“We will be examining different dimensions and will handle preparations accordingly,” he said. “We will see how, with what kind of law we can achieve the optimum results.”

Ankara claims that militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community, use camps in northern Iraq as a springboard for cross-border attacks.

Faced with mounting PKK violence, Erdogan’s government secured parliamentary approval in October to order cross-border operations against PKK targets if necessary.

Current Turkish laws allow for an amnesty for any member of an illegal organisation who has not committed a crime, declares his affiliation to authorities before a probe is launched, and provides information which could help lead to the dissolution of the body.

The present laws have not yielded great results.

Kurdish organisations meanwhile have been pressing for a total amnesty for PKK activists.

Erdogan said he was seeking a more “sweeping” law. “We are however in a different situation. With the help of the media, we could have better results and we could diminish the need to go to the mountains,” he said.

Turkey has massed an estimated 100,000 troops along the border with Iraq. It has despatched soldiers in the frontier region and has struck at rebel targets on Turkish soil after the PKK mounted attacks on soldiers.

But the Turkish prime minister stressed that his government had not struck a deal with the PKK.

“We are not doing any trade-offs with anyone,” he said. “We will say, here’s the law, come and give yourselves up.”

Turkey’s main opposition leader Deniz Baykal has accused Erdogan of pandering to the rebels by providing a sweeping amnesty for PKK members.

After talks with Erdogan at the White House in early last month, US

President George W Bush called the PKK a “common enemy” and promised to provide Turkey with real-time intelligence on rebel movements.

Bush’s pledge was largely seen as tacit US approval for limited cross-border Turkish strikes, mainly air raids, against the rebels. – AFP