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No amnesty plan for Kurdistan Workers' Party rebels

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  • No amnesty plan for Kurdistan Workers' Party rebels

    PanARMENIAN.Net

    No amnesty plan for Kurdistan Workers' Party rebels
    28.03.2009 18:34 GMT+04:00

    /PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Turkish prime minister says the country has no
    plans to consider amnesty for Kurdish rebels in order to end a 24-year
    insurgency.

    Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an interview with NTV television on Friday
    denied media reports that the government might consider an amnesty for
    the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist
    group by Ankara and much of the international community.

    He said that an amnesty 'is out of the question'. ''Only voluntary
    disarmament is acceptable for Turkey.''

    The PKK, which took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-majority
    southeast in 1984, has long taken refuge in the mountains of
    autonomous Kurdish-run northern Iraq. They have used this area as a
    launching pad for cross-border attacks on Turkish territory.

    Iraq's government and the Iraqi Kurds have pledged to help Turkey
    against the PKK and urged the rebels to disarm or leave Iraq.

    Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, earlier this month
    said Kurdish groups from regional countries would gather in northern
    Iraq in late April or May and issue a joint appeal for the PKK to lay
    down arms. It is not yet clear if PKK representatives would be invited
    to the meeting.
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