Turkey is considering ways to persuade Kurdish autonomy-seeking rebels to end their 25-year-old campaign of attacks, but is not planning on making an amnesty offer _ a key rebel demand, the interior minister said Monday, AP reported. The government will reveal a strategy for ending the fighting when Parliament resumes in October, Interior Minister Besir Atalay said. «We have not and are not making any mention of the concept of amnesty,» Atalay said in comments broadcast live on Turkish television. «However, the most important thing is for the (rebels) to lay down arms» and for the PKK rebel group «to be dissolved,» he said. «We are working on all alternatives.» The Turkish government has been trying to build public support for ending the conflict with the PKK, which stands for the Kurdistan Workers' Party. The group is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Some lawmakers and newspaper reports have said any conciliation by the government would comprise economic measures and increased rights for Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of Turkey's 75 million population and dominate the country's southeast. The leader of a pro-Kurdish political party expressed disappointment with Atalay's comments Monday, saying they fell short of Kurds' expectations. «You have to keep in mind the sensitivities of the Kurds,» said Ahmet Turk, whose party is accused of having rebel links. The rebels are demanding an unconditional amnesty for all of their fighters, many of whom launch attacks from bases in northern Iraq and subject to extradition warrants. Since the fighting began in 1984, tens of thousands have been killed. Atalay has asked Kurdish politicians, academics, trade unions and nongovernmental organizations for ideas on how to halt the fighting. Suggested measures include renaming thousands of Kurdish villages that have Turkish names, expanding Kurdish-language education and removing laws that allow stone-throwing children to be imprisoned on terrorism charges. -- SPA
