PKK says the government should enable our movement to meet leader Ocalan without delay

ANKARA,— Kurdish rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK have rejected a call for them to lay down their arms, saying Turkey’s government must first take steps to advance democracy and withdraw a controversial security bill being debated in Parliament.

The rebel statement Sunday on the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency came in response to a call by imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan asking his PKK, to convene a congress in the spring to decide to end its armed struggle.

Turkey’s imprisoned Kurdish leader called on his followers to take a “historic” decision to lay down their arms, according to a statement on Saturday, a crucial step in Turkey’s drive to end the insurgency by Kurdish rebels.

The rebel group said it had already implemented a cease-fire as part of the efforts to end the 30-year bloody insurgency. It said the Turkish government must show its “sincerity” by abandoning the bill that would increase police powers.

The KCK, The Kurdistan Communities’ Union (KCK), an umbrella group for all wings of the PKK said that it would be in keeping with the spirit of the process to permit representatives of political parties and civil society organisations to meet Leader Ocalan and would increase support for the process.

The KCK statement said work should start immediately so that negotiations could begin, with delegations being established and monitoring bodies set up. The statement concluded by calling on all democratic forces to support the project of democratisation and for democratic pressure to be exerted to ensure the state and AKP government takes the necessary steps.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed a call by imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan to Kurdish PKK rebels for disarmament on Saturday but stressed the importance of implementation.

“It is a call that began with the democratic process, with this national unity and brotherhood project, which now continues with the solution process,” Erdogan said in Istanbul ahead of his departure for Saudi Arabia for official talks.

The Turkish state launched clandestine peace talks with the group in 2012 which led to the rebels declaring a ceasefire in March 2013.

Ocalan declared a cease-fire in 2013 and ordered the PKK to withdraw fighters to bases in Iraqi Kurdistan’s border region with Turkey. PKK says it keeps about half of its 7,000 fighters.

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 in Turkish Kurdistan region in the southeast of the country, 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.

According to experts Abdullah Ocalan has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide.

The PKK is considered as ‘terrorist’ organization by Ankara and U.S. The PKK continues to be on the blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which overturned a decision to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its political wing on the European Union’s terror list.

Read more about Turkish-Kurdish Peace Process

(With files AP | AFP | AA| Agencies)

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