ISTANBUL,— The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) has categorically denied claiming that the jailed Kurdish leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, referred to cooperation between the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) — a Kurdish group in Syria Kurdistan with close links to the PKK — and Turkish troops over the relocation of an Ottoman (Süleyman Şah) tomb in Syrian Kurdistan in his Newroz message, vowing it will never take the terrorist organization as its interlocutor.

In a statement released on its website, the military said some media groups released reports over the remarks of “the leader of terrorist organization” in which Ocalan said “Eşme spirit.” It said the reports, alleging cooperation between the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and PYD/PKK through the remarks of Ocalan, who was never a part of the military and will never be, do not reflect the truth.

The military statement also said it fiercely condemns those who ascribe these allegations to the TSK, which has engaged in an armed struggle for 31 years against the terrorist organization, which it says aims to change Turkey’s constitutional order.

The TSK said it is continuing its fight against the terrorists upon the instructions of the government and within the legal framework, adding, “As we have stated numerous times, the TSK will not be an actor of internal political fights and will continue to fulfill its duties of a democratic, secular, social state and rule of law.”

In a message relayed by Kurdish politicians to tens of thousands gathered in the southeastern Kurdish city of Diyarbakir (Amed) in Turkish Kurdistan, Ocalan urged the PKK to hold a congress on laying down its weapons.

Since it was established in 1984 the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state, but now limited its demands to establish an autonomous Kurdish region and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds, who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 75-million population but have long been denied basic political and cultural rights, its goal to political autonomy. A large Turkey’s Kurdish community openly sympathise with PKK rebels.

Read more about Turkish-Kurdish Peace Process

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