Obama welcomes Ankara's PKK efforts

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- The steps taken by Ankara to address lingering issues with the Kurdish minority and separatists are considered helpful, the U.S. president said in Washington.

U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Washington to discuss a wide range of issues from Ankara's NATO commitments in Afghanistan to its role in Iraq and the surrounding region.

Ankara has embraced a political and cultural initiative meant to address the concerns of the Kurdish minority in an effort to find a way to end years of turmoil with the ethnic group and guerrilla separatists in the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

Obama characterized the efforts as "very helpful," noting that "terrorism cannot just be dealt with militarily -- there is also social and political components to it that have to be recognized."

Ankara includes Kurdish-language considerations and other cultural concessions as part of its reconciliation strategy.

Washington considers the PKK to be a terrorist organization for its militant activity in parts of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey. The U.S. Treasury Department recently froze the assets of leaders of the PKK for narcotic trafficking.