Turkish PM slams Kurdish party for rebel ties

[March 03, 2011]  ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's prime minister accused the country's leading pro-Kurdish party on Thursday of serving as "spokesman" for an outlawed Kurdish rebel group that is fighting for autonomy.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the People's Democracy Party, following demands from the party to move imprisoned Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan from a prison island into house arrest and end prosecution of dozens of Kurdish mayors on charges of separatism. The government has refused.

"We see a political party leaving politics and democratic ground, being a spokesman for the terrorist organization," Erdogan said.

Erdogan said the rebel group and its affiliates were trying to provoke residents of the country's Kurdish-dominated southeast ahead of elections in June in the hopes of winning more votes.

Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, ended a unilateral cease-fire Monday, saying the government had not responded to their demands.

The PKK rebels, who are considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union, took up arms in 1984 to seek an independent Kurdish state. It has since changed demands and says it is fighting for an autonomy within Turkey.

Ocalan is serving a life sentence on the prison island of Imrali. He was captured in Kenya in 1999 and a Turkish court sentenced him to death, which was later commuted to life in prison.

While Turks consider Ocalan responsible for nearly 40,000 deaths since the conflict began, he is still revered by Kurdish supporters, who often brave clashes with police for carrying his posters or shouting his name, which is illegal in Turkey.

The government has taken several steps to improve the rights of Kurds, including allowing a Kurdish-language television broadcast, but Kurdish politicians insist on broader rights such as education in Kurdish. Turkey opposes this out of fear that it could divide the country along ethnic lines. Kurds make up nearly 20 percent of the country's 74 million people.

[Associated Press]

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