The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Qandil

A top Kurdish rebel based in northern Iraq called on Ankara to present a peace plan that could end his group's armed rebellion against Turkey, in an interview with AFP on Thursday.

"I call upon Turkey to be courageous and present a peace plan to solve the problem. In this way it is possible to have a ceasefire," said Abdul Rahman al-Chadirchi, a senior leader in the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Turkey, which is pressing Iraq to crack down on PKK guerrillas based there, has not closed its airspace to flights to and from northern Iraq, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday.

Turkish broadcaster NTV television reported earlier that flights to and from northern Iraq had been closed as part of economic sanctions targeting groups supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) operating in northern Iraq. Erdogan also told reporters sanctions against groups supporting the PKK had not yet been put into force.

Meanwhile, Turkey announced a blitz of sanctions targeting Kurdish PKK rebels on Wednesday in a move expected to affect members of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish administration.

The move came after Turkey said it had killed another 15 Kurdish separatists near the Iraqi border and the United States revealed it was providing Ankara with intelligence on the rebels holed up in northern Iraq.

Turkish vice prime minister and government spokesman Cemil Cicek said the cabinet had adopted "simultaneous military, political, diplomatic and economic measures" targeting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and "its associates." He declined to give more detail about the sanctions, but defined associates as "those who help it (the PKK) and who shield it."

Ankara accuses the Iraqi Kurdish administration of harbouring the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and has been threatening an invasion of northern Iraq to pursue the separatists.

On Wednesday, the Turkish military reported new fighting in an area bordering Iraq, the Cudi mountains of Sirnak province, in which 15 separatists and three soldiers have been killed since Monday.