Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan ordered his fighters on Thursday to cease fire and withdraw from Turkish soil as a step to ending a conflict that has killed 40,000 people, riven the country and battered its economy, Reuters reported. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, gathered in the regional centre of Diyarbakir, cheered and waved banners bearing Ocalan's moustachioed image when a letter from the rebel leader, held since 1999 on a prison island in the Marmara Sea, was read out by a pro-Kurdish politician. "Let guns be silenced and politics dominate," he said to a sea of red-yellow-green Kurdish flags. "The stage has been reached where our armed forces should withdraw beyond the borders ... It's not the end. It's the start of a new era." Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has taken considerable risks since he was elected in 2002, breaking taboos deeply rooted in a conservative establishment, not least in the military, by extending cultural and language rights to Kurds. But Kurdish activists demand greater freedom from Ankara. Erdogan, talking in the Netherlands, welcomed the ceasefire call but said the real test would be putting it into action. Military operations would stop if the rebel guns fell silent. "From the time it is implemented, the atmosphere in Turkey will change. I believe in this," he said. But he condemned the absence of the red Turkish flag with star and crescent moon at the Diyarbakir rally. -- SPA 20:31 LOCAL TIME 17:31 GMT تغريد
