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The Kurdistan Workers' Party, better known as the PKK, issued a statement Tuesday in the midst of increasing Turkish operations against suspect Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey, the AP reports.
"We are renewing our declaration to halt attacks against the Turkish army," said PKK official Abdul Rahman Chaderchi, speaking in northern Iraq, the AP reports.
"We want peace and we are ready for negotiations. But if Turkey decides to attack our bases inside Turkey or inside Iraqi Kurdistan, then this unilateral cease-fire will be meaningless. If we are attacked, we will fight back and we have the ability to confront any Turkish aggression, said Chaderchi, who is in charge of "foreign affairs" for the organization, according to the AP.
In recent weeks Turkish troops have deployed heavily along the Iraqi border, and Kurdish Iraqi parties have reported scores of cross-border shells fired on Kurdish areas.
Turkey has not commented on the statement, as it seldom publicly acknowledges PKK communiques, the AP writes.
Sean McCormick, US State Department spokesman, told reporters in Washington, "The PKK is a terrorist organization . . . We take quite seriously the concerns of the Turkish government. They've lost lives . . . and it's an issue that needs to be dealt with," the AP writes.
The Turkish prime minister indicated earlier on Tuesday that he preferred Turkish forces to focus on attacking the PKK inside Turkey.
"There are 500 terrorists in Iraq; there are 5,000 terrorists inside Turkey. Has terrorism inside Turkey ended for us to think about an operation in northern Iraq?," Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan said, the AP reports.
At the same time, Erdogan has pledged support for the Turkish military, and has asked it to prepare a plan for cross-border operations to be submitted to the Turkish parliament, the Italian Aki agency reports.
Turkey's Army appear to continue to lobby for an incursion into northern Iraq, AP writes, but political approval from the Turkish Parliament would be required for such a move, and that has not yet been sought, the AP reports.
With Turkish elections approaching, the PKK's cease-fire may be an attempt to ease the electoral pressures on Kurdish candidates, the AP suggests. Or it may be an attempt to de-escalate tensions in the region or to portray itself as a peace-seeking organization, the agency writes.
