ANKARA - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to expand Kurdish rights and end a bloody insurgency, analysts said Tuesday.
But the government has been criticised since last week when a group of rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) crossed from Iraq into Turkey in symbolic surrender to show support for Ankara's Kurdish opening and were set free shortly.
Although Erdogan initially hailed the group's arrival as a boost to his reconciliation plan, the subsequent hero's welcome organized for the rebels by thousands of Kurds chanting pro-PKK slogans soured the mood.
Amid accusations of showing leniency to "terrorists" behind a 25-year rebellion, Erdogan announced that the arrival of a second rebel group had been postponed and that his government would take a break to assess the situation.
The development was no surprise, said Soner Cagaptay from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Political analyst Dogu Ergil said scenes of the freed "separatist Kurdish terrorists" dressed in combat fatigues addressing jubilant crowds had infuriated the Turkish public opinion.
"We were expecting the rebels to express remorse," he said.
Remarks coming from the PKK since last week were defiant.
"The government's view was that the PKK would lay down weapons and come into the Turkish society and just fold in but the PKK is saying 'no, we will not lay down weapons, we are going to come as we are and enter politics'," Cagaptay said.
The government has said its opening will involve steps to expand Kurdish freedoms in a bid to "strengthen bonds of brotherhood between Turks and Kurds" and address past grievances.
But the action of PKK supporters was creating resentment across larger parts of the society where nerves are still raw over the PKK's armed campaign for self-rule that has cost some 45,000 lives since 1984.
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