Turkey’s Kurdish Rebels Consider Ending Cease-fire

ANKARA (AP) –11.10.2013  Kurdish rebels have criticized reforms unveiled by Turkey’s government and said that could lead them to end a unilateral cease-fire they began six months ago.

The rebel declaration, carried by the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency on Thursday, said the government’s position in the coming days will determine ”whether the cease-fire will continue.” The government hasn’t attacked rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, since the cease-fire began. But the PKK recently suspended its pullout from Turkish territory, accusing the government of failing to grant Kurds more rights. Turkey has frequently struck targets in Iraq, where the PKK has bases, and earlier Thursday parliament extended the military’s right to do that for another year.