"I hope the laying down of arms will become permanent and everybody will come back from that mistake," the Anatolia news agency quoted President Abdullah Gul as saying in southern Turkey.

The separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, said Monday it was extending a truce, declared on August 13, until general elections next summer to push for a peaceful solution of the 26-year conflict.

Ankara has recently launched a cautious, low-profile effort at dialogue with the Kurds, aimed at convincing the PKK to lay down arms.

Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan appears engaged in the effort, with his lawyers acting as intermediaries and holding talks with him on the prison island of Imrali.

State officials have also held direct meetings with Ocalan, according to his lawyers.

The Milliyet daily reported Tuesday that the PKK extended the truce heeding a letter from Ocalan, which was conveyed to the rebel leadership, based in the mountains of neighbouring northern Iraq, with the help of Turkish officials.

In his weekly speech in parliament, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan evaded the truce issue, vowing to keep up the struggle against "terrorism" simultaneously with efforts to expand Kurdish freedoms.

"We will never bow down to terrorism. We will not make concessions neither from the struggle (against terrorism) nor democratisation," he said.

Stressing efforts to improve the rights of the Kurdish community and boost their economic development, Erdogan accused the PKK of hindering progress in the Kurdish-majority southeast.

Bidding to resolve the conflict carries political risks for the government ahead of general elections, expected in June, as many Turks remain hostile to reconciliation moves as concessions to violence.

The PKK prolonged the truce a day after a suicide bomber attacked a police patrol in downtown Istanbul, wounding 15 officers and 17 civilians.

Immediate suspicion fell on the PKK, but the group denied responsibility Monday. The police are yet to name the group behind the attack.

Some commentators suggested the attack could be the work of PKK hardliners opposed to dialogue.

The PKK took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.