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Kurdish party welcomes Ocalan truce offer

ANKARA, Sept 29, 2006 (AFP) - Turkey's main Kurdish political party Friday welcomed jailed rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan's appeal to his Kurdish separatist group to call a ceasefire and urged Ankara to seize this opportunity to end the 22-year conflict.

"We welcome this appeal. The country needs this chance at peace," Semdin Sakik, spokesman for the Party for a Democratic Society (DTP), told AFP.

He called on the authorities not to reject outright the appeal Ocalan made through his lawyers Thursday to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been battling the Ankara government since 1984 with a loss of 37,000 lives so far.

"If this situation is handled well by all concerned -- the politicans, the army and the PKK -- we could obtain an end to the hostilities," said Sakik, who has spent jail time for allegedly supporting the PKK.

He spoke hours after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan brushed off Ocalan's offer, saying: "A ceasfire is done between states. It is not something for a terrorist organisation."

In an interview late Thursday with the private Samanyolu television channel, Erdogan said instead that the PKK militants should simply lay down arms and surrender.

This was no surprise, Turkish officials having rejected four previous truces proclaimed by the PKK, which was set up by Ocalan in 1978 and took up arms against the central government in 1984.

It is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.