"Our constitution says every citizen is equal, but there are problems when it comes to democratic standards," Gul said in televised remarks while visiting to his home town of Kayseri in central Turkey.

"The important issue is how can we... win over all our citizens and strenghten their sense of identity towards the Turkish Republic," he said.

Since 1984, Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast and east have been the theatre of an armed campaign by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels for self-rule in the region.

The conflict has claimed some 45,000 lives, led to allegations of gross human rights violations and driven a wedge between Ankara and the Kurds who for years were ignored by officialdom and were banned from even speaking their own language until recently.

Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his government was working on fresh ouvertures to the Kurdish community in a bid to encourage PKK rebels to lay down their arms.

There has been no official word on the details of the plan, but newspapers reports have suggested that opening Kurdish-language departments in universities and allowing villages and towns in the Kurdish-majority areas to re-adopt their Kurdish names might be among the planned measures.

Some analysts say Ankara's plan could be announced shortly to pre-empt a "roadmap for a democratic solution" that jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is expected to propose in August.

"It would be so much better if we resolved our problems through our own willpower," Gul said. "Turkey will overcome problems by improving democratic standards, having faith in itself and accepting its diversities as its wealth."

Ankara categorically refuses to negotiate with the PKK and has rejected calls for a general amnesty to encourage the rebels to give up their armed campaign.

Seeking to boost its bid to join the European Union, Turkey has in recent years granted the Kurds a measure of cultural freedoms, but Kurdish activists say the reforms are inadequate and have instead called for greater political rights, among them a recognition of their ethnic identity.