Turkish deputy prime minister rules out special status for Kurds

ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) -- Deputy Prime Minister Devlet Bahceli on Saturday said Turkey could not grant minority status to Kurds because that would legitimate the separatist war waged by Kurdish rebels.

Kurdish guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan -- sentenced to hang for treason last year -- has from his jail cell ordered his fighters to cease fire and instead wage a peaceful campaign for cultural rights for the country's 12 million Kurds.

The European Union has urged Turkish authorities to ease restrictions on the use of Kurdish language in education and broadcasting and improve its checkered human rights record as a step towards EU membership.

Turkey has so far refused, saying Kurds enjoy equal rights with Turks before the law. Only non-Moslems have minority status in Turkey under the 1923 Lausanne Agreement and rights such as that of education in their own languages.

"It is impossible for us to accept such an approach which on ethnic basis could justify a terror movement... by producing a new minority concept that goes beyond the minority description made by the Lausanne Agreement," the nationalist Bahceli told mainstream daily Hurriyet in an interview published on Saturday.

Bahceli's conservative coalition partners appear to take a softer line on Kurdish cultural rights. Conservative Mesut Yilmaz, coordinator for Turkey's EU membership bid, said last week that now that "terrorism" was over Ankara could take unprecedented steps.

Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fought for self-rule in the mountainous southeast for 15 years, in a conflict that cost over 30,000 lives. Fighting has now largely ended.

Bahceli said there was no ban on using Kurdish in daily life but he opposed any further moves such as officially allowing education in Kurdish. "That would mean handing down what the PKK has been seeking for years as middle term goals in order to reach its final target," he was quoted as saying by the daily.

The Nationalist Action Party leader also objects to abolishing the death penalty, saying that would save Ocalan's neck. Scrapping it is a condition of EU membership.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For more Middle East news, myCNN.com will bring you news from the areas and subjects you select.

See related sites about Middle East

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.