ANKARA, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Turkey revealed Friday details of a reform plan to broaden rights for the country's Kurdish minority and end 25-year-long conflicts with Kurd rebels, Turkish media reported.

    Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay told a parliament session Friday the reform will include moves to set up an anti-discrimination institution, establish an independent body to handle complaints against the security forces and form a national mechanism to prevent torture, the newspaper Hurriyet Daily News reported on its website.

    The reform will also remove restrictions on the use of the once banned Kurdish language in political campaigns and enable residential places to restore their original Kurdish names, the minister said.

    Constitutional changes would be necessary to initiate those steps, which can be revised in light of new developments, he was quoted of saying.

    The reform package, dubbed as "democratic initiative", was first announced in July after Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), said he would propose a plan to solve the country's long-existing Kurdish issue.

    The government has said the reform is aimed at eroding support for the PKK, which Turkey lists as a terrorist group and has pursued armed separatist campaign since 1984 to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey.

    The reform is expected to benefit Turkey's bid to join the European Union, which has demanded more rights for minorities. But it has sparked a strong backlash from Turkey's nationalists and opposition parties, who accused the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) of hurting national unity.

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the parliament Friday that the democratic initiative aims to solve all problems in Turkey and to facilitate democracy in all fields, not just targeting terror or the Kurdish issue.

    "The goal is national unity and brotherhood," the semi-official Anatolia news agency quoted Erdogan as saying.

    During the parliament debate on the initiative, Chairman Deniz Baykal of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP)slammed the government as cooperating with the PKK, which he said hasn't changed its separatist goal or given up terrorism.

    "You fight against terrorism, you do not negotiate with terrorism," Anatolia quoted Baykal as saying.

    Meanwhile, Ahmet Turk, leader of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), suggested a committee in which all political parties at the parliament were represented should be set up to find a democratic and political solution to the Kurdish issue.

    Arms could be laid down within three months if there is a serious approach to the solution, he was quoted by Anatolia as saying.

    Conflicts between the security forces and the PKK have killed some 40,000 people in Turkey. Military forces have taken tough actions against the PKK, launching crossborder air raids against their bases in north Iraq in the past two years.

    The AK Party has taken steps to expand rights of the Kurds since coming into power in 2002, such as launching the first national Kurdish-language TV channel and allowing private schools to teach Kurdish courses.