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Kurd rebels say ceasefire in Turkey to continue

ANKARA: Kurdish guerrillas will not break a four-month-old ceasefire in their separatist campaign against Turkey despite recent fierce fighting in which 130 people have died, a Kurdish news agency said on Wednesday.

"The unilateral ceasefire declared by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on December 14 is still in progress," the DEM agency quoted a spokesman for the rebels' political wing as saying.

"Guerrilla forces will continue to be in an active defence position," the spokesman told the Germany-based agency.

Rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his forces before Turkish general elections last December to lie low to give any new government time to find a political solution to the Kurdish problem.

The new government of Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz has ignored the ceasefire.

Turkish officials said on Tuesday that troops were tightening the noose around some 300 rebels surrounded in the mountains of Bingol and Diyarbakir provinces after four days of some of the bloodiest clashes in the 12-year-old rebel campaign.

Journalists in the region said fighting was still continuing on Tuesday.

Turkey says that 100 guerrillas and 30 soldiers have died in the clashes which began last weekend but DEM put the military's death toll at 57. It said rebel losses were unknown.

Guerrilla chief Ocalan, believed to be based in Syria, has threatened to unleash suicide bombers in western Turkish cities if he ends the ceasefire.

More than 18,700 people have died in the PKK's fight for Kurdish autonomy or independence.-Reuter