ANKARA, Turkey, July 22 (UPI) -- Ankara should pursue legal reforms that would allow former Kurdish militants to play a role in the country, a Turkish government report suggests.
Lawmakers with the center-left Republican People's Party are on a fact-finding mission in the Kurdish area of southern Turkey as they revise a report on Kurdish issues in the country.
The revised report recommends that pro-Kurdish lawmakers in the Peace and Democracy Party should be allowed to play a role in addressing issues regarding the Kurdish minority community, the official Anatolian news agency reports.
Further recommendations include waiving criminal records for former members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Former PKK members, the revised report suggests, should be allowed to play a stronger role in the civil organizations in the Kurdish parts of Turkey.
PKK leaders told BBC correspondents there were willing to lay down their weapons if Ankara was ready to talk.
Ankara in 2009 embarked on a reconciliation campaign to find a political solution to lingering issues with the Kurdish minority. PKK members, for their part, formed so-called peace groups as part of the effort to resolve decades of animosity with Ankara.
A court decision to ban a pro-Kurdish party from politics, however, led in part to a collapse of the reconciliation process.
