Kurdish PKK says ready to intensify fight against Turkey

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Kurdish rebel PKK movement has told the BBC that it is ready to intensify its fight against Turkey because Ankara is trying to make it surrender, the news agency reports.

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Cemil Bayik said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was "escalating this war".

"The Kurds will defend themselves to the end, so long as this is the Turkish approach - of course the PKK will escalate the war," he said.

Separately, an aide to Erdogan ruled out any negotiations with the PKK.

Turkish presidential adviser Ilnur Cevik told the BBC's Mark Lowen that the PKK was "trying to create a separate state in Turkey - this is outright secession".

When asked if there was any chance of negotiation, he replied: "At the moment, no". He added that Erdogan had popular support for the military campaign.

But Bayik, the PKK's military leader, insisted that "we don't want to separate from Turkey and set up a state".

"We don't want to divide Turkey. We want to live within the borders of Turkey on our own land freely... The struggle will continue until the Kurds' innate rights are accepted."

He said Turkish intransigence had made the PKK ready to escalate the conflict "not only in Kurdistan, but in the rest of Turkey as well".