Top EU diplomat calls for Turkish-PKK peace

ANKARA, Turkey (Kurdistan24) - High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini called on Friday for a new process of peace negotiations between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Mogherini, alongside EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, are in Turkey for bilateral talks on various issues on a first visit to the country after the failed July 15 coup attempt.

At a joint news conference after a high-level meeting with Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in the Turkish capital of Ankara, Mogherini said violence and terrorist attacks had to stop and she invited the PKK to lay down the arms.

Mogherini, who in the past reiterated EU support for the largely held March 2013 - August 2015 ceasefire and peace negotiations between the Turkish government and the PKK, stressed the need for renewed talks.

"[A] political process [needs to be] started, and the European Union, obviously, would be ready to accompany this process," she said.

The PKK has been intermittently waging a guerrilla war for Kurdish self-governance and wider cultural rights in Turkey against government forces.

Mogherini --also the EU's Security Policy Chief, reaffirmed that member states of the Union continue to consider PKK as a terrorist organization, a view shared by Turkey's NATO ally the United States.

The peace process between Turkey and the PKK collapsed in mid-2015 after mutual armed provocations.

Since then, a new round of fighting in urban and rural areas in Kurdistan of Turkey (East and Southeast) has cost lives for hundreds of civilians, Kurdish fighters and Turkish soldiers and police.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim who was on a visit to the Kurdish de-facto capital of Diyarbakir last week denounced any calls for peace with the PKK, saying "there is no new process. They missed that opportunity."

Editing by Ava Homa
(Reporting by Ari Khalidi)