Thousands of Kurds rallied here Friday calling for an end to deadly fighting between the army and Kurdish rebels amid government efforts to end a 25-year insurgency. Some 10,000 people - relatives of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels killed in clashes - marched through Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish south-east, shouting "Martyrs never die."
"Hear the cries of these mothers. We are saying that no policeman, soldier or guerrilla should die. Let's live in peace," Hasan Pence, the chairman of a relative's support group, said. Some 45,000 people - most of them Kurdish rebels - have been killed since 1984 when the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, picked up arms for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish east and south-east.
"These people have fought for their language, culture and identity, and paid a price. If we are talking about peace today, it is because of them," Pervin Buldan, a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, said. For the past few months, the Ankara government has been working on a series of measures aimed at improving the rights of the Kurdish community and eroding support for the PKK.
Details of the package have not been released, but the government has already ruled out dialogue with the PKK or a general amnesty for the rebels, a key Kurdish demand. Sceptics argue that a lasting settlement cannot be achieved if Ankara insists on rejecting contact with the PKK and fails to draw up a clear strategy to convince the rebels to lay down arms.