Erdogan Says New Talks with Kurd Rebels Possible

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey could hold new negotiations with Kurdish rebels, in the face of a surge in deadly violence in the Kurdish-dominated southeast.

"We are ready to do whatever is necessary to (find) a solution," Erdogan told Turkish television late Wednesday, but insisting that the militants who have been fighting the Turkish state since 1984 must lay down their weapons.

"If talks enable us to resolve something, let's do it," he told Kanal17, suggesting that they could take place in Oslo, which hosted talks between the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the government between 2009 and 2011.

Turkish intelligence officials last met with leaders of the PKK in 2011 but the dialogue broke off without result.

Turkey has witnessed a sharp escalation of Kurdish rebel attacks targeting its security forces in the southeast in recent months, triggering full-fledged military operations in the region.

In all, about 45,000 people have been killed since the PKK, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community, took up arms in the southeast in 1984.