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THE STANS
Iraqi Kurd politician backs Turkey-PKK peace process
by Staff Writers
Ankara (AFP) March 26, 2013


A top Iraqi Kurdish politician on Tuesday voiced support for the ongoing peace talks between Turkey and Kurdish rebels aimed at ending three-decades of hostilities, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

"We are ready to propose anything for this process to be concluded successfully," Iraqi Kurdistan's prime minister Nechirvan Barzani was quoted as saying by Anatolia on the second day of his visit to Turkey.

"We did support it in the beginning and will continue to support (it)," he said after meeting Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chairman of Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), in Ankara.

Jailed Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), last week called for a ceasefire in a move that raised expectations for an end to a conflict that has cost some 45,000 lives, mostly Kurdish.

In a letter penned from his island prison cell, Ocalan told his fighters to lay down their arms and withdraw from Turkish soil.

The move capped months of clandestine peace talks between Turkey's spy agency and the state's former nemesis Ocalan, whose movement is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

The ceasefire call is likely to be in return for wider constitutional rights for the up to 15 million Kurds in Turkey.

The banned PKK also wants to see the release of thousands of detainees and safe passage for militants withdrawing into northern Iraq.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has responded cautiously to the ceasefire declaration by saying Turkey would end military operations against the PKK if militants halt their attacks.

Top PKK rebel commander Murat Karayilan on Saturday said PKK fighters would only pull out of Turkey once the rebel movement sees goodwill gestures from Ankara.

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