ANKARA, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called on his country's Kurdish citizens to declare opposition to the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
Erdogan made the remarks at a congress of his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party in the Turkish capital of Ankara.
"We are expecting our Kurdish brethren to raise a brave voice and strongly say 'No' to terror. We want to draw a road map again with our Kurdish brothers and sisters and enrich brotherhood in this country together with them," he said.
Erdogan said his government had made investments worth of 35 quadrillion Turkish liras (about 19.6 quadrillion U.S. dollars ) in the east and southeast part of Turkey within the last decade, in addition to ending denial and assimilation policies and lifting barriers on the Kurdish language.
"And today we want to open a clean slate and fill it together with our Kurdish brothers. We want to keep it from violence and to make it a clean slate of peace and brotherhood," Erdogan said.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms in 1984 in an attempt to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey. Since then, over 40,000 people have been killed in conflicts involving the group.
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