ANKARA, 25 October 2005 — Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, in an interview published here yesterday, suggested a “general amnesty” by Ankara for Turkey’s Kurdish PKK rebels to end fighting in southwest Turkey. “It is possible to bring down the PKK from the mountains if there is a general amnesty in Turkey,” Talabani, himself a Kurd, told English-language daily The New Anatolian.

“It will also be helpful if there is some kind of cooperation between Turkey, the Iraqi government, the PUK and the KDP over the issue,” he said. Talabani was referring to the two main Kurdish factions that share power in Northern Iraq, his own Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Massood Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party. “It will be impossible to solve the issue by using force,” Talabani said, adding: “The Iraqi army is not yet able to do this.

“If we push the PKK too far, perhaps they will start cooperating with terrorists in Iraq like Al-Qaeda, Ansar El-Islam and (Abu Musab) Zarqawi and will bring more trouble to all of us,” he said.

Meanwhile, Turkish police detained 12 Kurdish protesters yesterday for allegedly hurling stones at security forces near a courthouse where four Turkish policemen faced trial on charges of killing a Kurdish boy and his father, news agencies reported. Many human rights groups see the trial as a test of whether Turkey, closer now to its dream of entering the European Union, is able to hold police more accountable for their actions.

Lawyers for the slain boy and his father walked out of the courtroom in protest after police barred some human rights advocates from attending the trial, Anatolia news agency reported.

The trial was ordered after 12-year-old Ugur Kaymaz and his father, Ahmet, were shot dead outside of their home in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern province of Mardin on Nov. 21.

Security forces say they were pursuing Kurdish rebels and the two were shot in an exchange of gunfire. The family denies any links with rebels and says the father and son were unarmed when they were killed. A court in Mardin ordered the trial to be held in Eskisehir, 1,220 kilometers west of Mardin, saying a trial would be dangerous in the Kaymaz’s home region due to strong emotions after the shooting.

Some 40 Kurdish protesters from southeastern Turkey, where Mardin is located, drove all the way to Eskisehir to try and attend the trial. Police set up road blocks at city entrances to block the protesters and called in armored personnel carriers and reinforcements from neighboring provinces.