ANKARA: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey could hold new negotiations with outlawed Kurdish rebels, in the face of a surge in deadly violence in the Kurdish-dominated southeast.
"We are ready to do whatever is necessary to (find) a solution," Erdogan told Turkish television late Wednesday, but insisting that the militants who have been fighting the Turkish state since 1984 must lay down their weapons.
"If talks enable us to resolve something, let's do it," he told Kanal17, suggesting that they could take place in Oslo, which hosted talks between the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the government between 2009 and 2011.
Turkish intelligence officials last met with leaders of the PKK in 2011 but the dialogue broke off without result.
Turkey has witnessed a sharp escalation of Kurdish rebel attacks targeting its security forces in the southeast in recent months, triggering full-fledged military operations in the region.
Erdogan said 144 members of the security forces and 239 rebels had been killed since the start of the year, after earlier this month giving much higher numbers for the Kurdish death toll.
He said while there was a military dimension to the conflict, Turkey would also work to resolve the conflict by "diplomatic, socio-economic and psychological means".
In all, about 45,000 people have been killed since the PKK, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community, took up arms in the southeast in 1984.
"We want the rule of law and democracy, and we will act within the law. But with those who do not understand the law, we will do what is necessary," Erdogan said.
As well as the increased military offensives, Turkey launched a wider political crackdown against the militants and their supporters in 2009, and hundreds of people have been arrested or put on trial for alleged links to the rebels. (AFP)
