Kurdistan Workers Party Leader Call

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Kurdistan Workers Party Leader Calls For Peace With Turkey

Kurdistan Workers Party Leader Calls For Peace With Turkey

Ankara, Turkey (Reuter - December 23, 1996) Kurdish rebel leader
Abdullah Ocalan called for a lasting solution to 12 years of
conflict between his forces and government troops in southeast
Turkey in comments published on Monday.
     "The time has come for a comprehensive peace", the Radikal
daily quoted Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) chief Ocalan as saying
in an interview in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
     Turkish governments and the military have often refused
direct negotiations with the PKK, which they regard as a
terrorist group. A unilateral rebel cease-fire declared last year
was ignored by Turkey.
     Ocalan said he would make peace proposals to Turkish
officials through unnamed mediators and repeated previous
assurances that he had dropped demands for a separate Kurdish
state on Turkish soil.
     "We will make a call for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish
problem in 1997 that respects Turkey's borders. They will not be
able to turn it down", he said.
     Radikal said Ocalan, also known as "Apo", vowed to launch
attacks in western Turkish cities if his peace offer was rejected
but it gave no more details of the threat.
     More than 21,000 people have died since the PKK took up arms
for Kurdish independence in 1984. The group has since stressed it
could settle for autonomy and cultural rights for Turkey's
estimated 10 million to 15 million Kurds.