ANKARA Ñ The Kurdish Workers Party has announced an end to a
four-year unilateral ceasefire with Turkey.
The group, also called the PKK or Kadek, said the ceasefire ended on
Sept. 1. The announcement came amid a renewal of PKK attacks in southeastern
Turkey near the Iraqi border.
The PKK has rejected a Turkish offer of amnesty for the surrender of
insurgents who operate in northern Iraq. About 5,000 PKK combatants were
said to be deployed in Iraq, many of them near the border with Syria.
So far, the Kurdish insurgency group has not formally renewed the war
against Turkey, which took place from 1983 until 1999. The unilateral
ceasefire was declared by PKK chief Abdullah Ocalan after he was captured in
Kenya in 1999.
"The coming three months will be for us a process of a struggle to
achieve a bilateral ceasefire," Mustafa Karasu, a senior PKK commander, told
the pro-Kurdish daily Ozgur Politika. "We do not see this as a process of a
war."
PKK sources said the group appears divided between elements who want to
renew the insurgency campaign against Turkey and those who want to stage
peaceful
protests among the Kurdish minority in Turkey. The government of Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has eliminated some of the restrictions imposed
on
Kurdish culture and language.
In Washington, the United States reiterated that it would work with
Turkey to eliminate the PKK presence in northern Iraq. The PKK appears on
the State Department list of terrorist groups.
"We have close liaison with Turkish military and Turkish government, and
we will continue to operate in that fashion to ensure that it's [northern
Iraq] not used as a base for terrorism against Turkey," State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher said on Tuesday. "And any concerns that Turkey
might have they can raise with us, and we'll try to make sure that they are
taken care of."
