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Kurdish writers say threatened by PKK: newspaper

ANKARA, Nov 24, 2007 (AFP) - Several leading Kurdish writers are being threatened by rebels for criticising their violent campaign in southeast Turkey, they said in remarks published Saturday.

The report came after a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) commander branded several Kurds, including senior officials from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), as "traitors" supporting the government.

"The PKK threats against me have recently increased," newspaper columnist Mehmet Metiner told the Sabah daily.

Writer Umit Firat said he was "shown as a target" in publications close to the PKK.

"The PKK cannot tolerate criticism... They are threatining us because we are revealing the truth," he told Sabah.

PKK commander Cemil Bayik Wednesday spoke of "some Kurdish collaborators and traitors" and urged Kurds to take "a robust stance against them," in remarks to a news agency close to the PKK.

Among those he named were Metiner and Firat, as well as four AKP members -- Education Minister Huseyin Celik, former interior minister Abdulkadir Aksu, AKP deputy chairman Mir Dengir Firat and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's advisor Cuneyd Zapsu.

Kurdish intellectuals have recently become more outspoken against PKK violence, while advocating broader rights for the Kurdish community.

Under EU pressure, Turkey has granted the Kurds a measure of cultural freedom, which, although described as inadequate by activists, has eroded popular support for the PKK.

The AKP won unprecedented support from the Kurds in the July elections and has 75 Kurds among its 340 lawmakers in the 550-seat parliament.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by much of the international community, has waged a bloody campaign for self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984.

Ankara has threatened a military incursion into northern Iraq to crack down on PKK camps there.