"We are actually in favour of a permanent ceasefire... We are waiting. We have not decided yet," Murat Karayilan, a top commander of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), told the Radikal newspaper.

The PKK, which has waged a bloody 26-year campaign for self-rule in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey, announced a unilateral truce on August 13, due to expire at the end of October.

Speaking at a PKK hideout in the Qandil mountains in neighbouring northern Iraq, Karayilan said the "ball is in the opposite court" and urged Ankara for reciprocal gestures.

"Stopping (military) operations (against the PKK) could be one step. Advancing the dialogue process with Ocalan is important," he told Radikal, referring to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Boosted by its victory in a September 12 referendum on constitutional reform, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has launched a cautious initiative aimed at cajoling the PKK into laying down arms.

The authorities appear to have already included Ocalan in the effort, with his lawyers acting as intermediaries and holding meetings with him on the prison island of Imrali.

The rare effort at dialogue is controversial in a country where many see the PKK as public enemy number one and fiercely oppose reconciliation moves as concession to violence.

Karayilan admitted "mistakes" over PKK attacks against civilians and pledged to stop them.

"If the right time comes, we may even apologise and try to make up for those mistakes," Radikal quoted him as saying.

PKK militants are now better "educated" not to harm civilians, he said, adding that such attacks "will never happen" again.

"This is my message to (Turkish) society," he said.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, targets mostly the security forces but has carried out deadly attacks also in urban areas, including seaside resorts popular with foreigners.

Most recently, it was blamed for a landmine explosion in September that killed nine on a minibus in southeast Turkey.

In July 2008, two near-simultaneous bombs killed 17 in a residential area in Istanbul.

Attacks on civilians are mostly claimed by a shadowy group which the PKK says is a splinter outside its control. Ankara insists the group is a front for PKK attacks on civilians.

Karayilan said the solution of the conflict should be based on Kurdish regional autonomy as part of a major constitutional overhaul.

The PKK "cannot be dissolved through violence or surrenders. And we cannot defeat the state either... A (peaceful) settlement is imposing itself in this context," he said.

Ankara has already ruled out demands for constitutional recognition of the Kurds and calls for Kurdish-language education in public schools.

Ankara's objective is to convince the PKK to announce an open-ended truce and then move to expand Kurdish freedoms, according to government sources.

The PKK took up arms in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.