The National Intelligence Organisation "can do the talks, we see nothing wrong in that," Erdogan was quoted as telling reporters who asked about such talks with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

"The goal is to solve the problem," he said on his way back to Turkey from Egypt on Monday, according to Hurriyet daily.

Erdogan's comments came after hundreds of Kurdish prisoners ended a 68-day hunger strike on Sunday, following an appeal by Ocalan, who said the action had achieved its goal.

The prisoners were demanding a lifting of the ban on the use of the Kurdish language in courtrooms, as well as better conditions for Ocalan.

Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) submitted last week a bill to the parliament to allow the Kurdish language in court, a move Erdogan says was not a concession to hunger strikers.

Ocalan is allowed to have visits from his family, which relays his messages to the public, but his lawyers have been denied visits for almost two years, as Ankara accuses them of carrying messages to Kurdish rebel top brass.

After a decade behind bars, Ocalan is still a respected figure for Turkey's Kurdish majority, although his influence in the hawkish wings of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is believed to have diminished.

"It was him (Ocalan) who requested to talk. Of course we will not give up the authority to use the tools we have in our hands," Erdogan told reporters.

Ocalan's call to prisoners fueled hopes that a fresh settlement could be negotiated through him and talks could start again between the state and the rebels waging a bloody insurgency against Ankara since 1984.

Ankara initiated clandestine talks with the prominent figures of the rebel group in 2009 to negotiate peace, but the talks failed.

The deadlock further increased the bloodshed in Turkey, where some 45,000 people, most of them Kurds, have been killed in the nearly three-decade-old conflict.

Ocalan was charged with treason and sentenced to hang in 1999 but the sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2002 after Ankara abolished the death penalty.