Turkey's Kurdish rebels give up armed struggle
The Kurdish rebel group that waged a 15 year war against Turkey announced a name change and shift in strategy today, saying it now wants to campaign peacefully for greater rights.
‘‘The armed struggle is over,’’ said Riza Erdogan, European spokesman of the new Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress, or Kadek.
Erdogan said in Brussels that Kadek would replace the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, called a ceasefire after his 1999 arrest, but the Turkish government rejected it and fighting continues, though it has decreased considerably in recent years.
At the weekend, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said the PKK continued to pursue its separatist goals and still had armed rebels based in Iran and Iraq.
‘‘They tell foreign countries, ‘We’ve finished with terror now,’ but the aim of the terror was to divide Turkey, and that aim is still there,’’ Ecevit said. ‘‘Terror is waiting in the wings.’’
Ocalan has been in a Turkish prison since he was captured in Kenya and is appealing the death sentence handed down by a Turkish court.
More than 37,000 people, mostly Kurds, have died in nearly two decades of fighting between the PKK and Turkish troops.
