Turkish Land Forces Commander Ilker Basbug said on Friday that everybody should make sure that pressure on the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) will continue in winter, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
Gen. Basbug made the call during a meeting with Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu of southeastern Turkish province of Diyarbakir.
Turkish security forces put pressure on the PKK in the past year despite all the difficulties, he said, calling on "the terrorists and their supporters to rely on the Turkish justice and to surrender to security forces."
Basbug highlighted the importance of "preventing participation to terrorist organization," saying, "The process of fighting against terrorism may last longer if we can not halt participation process."
Meanwhile, he noted that people of the region give the biggest support in fight against terrorism, underlining the necessity to protect the innocent people during any operation against the terrorists.
"Turkish Armed Forces has to carry out its tasks under the actual laws ... Turkish state is governed by rule of law. We should carry on our fight according to laws. We should abide by the laws and we should distinguish the innocent people and the terrorists," Basbug said.
Basbug added that terrorists do not have a future and the only way out is that terrorists come and surrender to security forces and confide in Turkish justice.
The PKK has increased attacks on government troops in southeastern Turkey, which led to rising Turkish demands for an incursion into northern Iraq to crush the rebels based there.
The group, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30, 000 lives.
Source: Xinhua
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