Mourners chant slogans as they carry the Turkish flap-wrapped coffin of the slain soldier Hasan Guresen during a funeral ceremony in Istanbul, Turkey, Monday, June 11, 2007. Thousands called on the government to resign during three separate funerals for soldiers slain in a roadside bomb attack by Kurdish rebels as frustration over the increasing death toll mounts. The guerrillas have recently stepped up attacks and many in the country are growing frustrated with the government's perceived inability to convince the United States and Iraqi Kurds to crackdown on the rebels, who stage attacks from bases inside northern Iraq. [AP]

The statement came as the Turkish military has intensified operations against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, also known as PKK, in the country's southeast, at the border with Iraq. The guerrillas have been fighting for autonomy in Turkey for more than two decades.

"We are renewing our declaration to halt attacks against the Turkish army," Abdul Rahman Chaderchi, the PKK official in charge of foreign affairs, said in northern Iraq, where the rebels have several bases.

"We want peace and we are ready for negotiations, but if Turkey decides to attack our bases inside Turkey or inside Iraqi Kurdistan, then this unilateral cease-fire will be meaningless. If we are attacked, we will fight back and we have the ability to confront any Turkish aggression," he added.

Turkish troops have massed at the frontier and shelled Iraqi territory while pursuing rebels, drawing criticism from the Iraqi government and raising fears that the conflict could draw in its NATO ally, the United States.

The Turkish government had no immediate response to the PKK statement, but has ignored several past cease-fires declared by the group, ruling out negotiations with "terrorists."

It was unclear if the rebel announcement reflected a desire to ease pressure from the Turkish armed forces, or was a public relations effort to portray the rebels as peace-seeking, and the military as the aggressor. The rebels might also want to give Kurdish candidates in Turkish parliamentary elections next month a chance to make gains at the polls without being accused of links to rebel violence.

The PKK has accused the Turkish military of engineering the collapse of a unilateral rebel cease-fire declared on Oct. 1, 2006.

Turkey's prime minister said Tuesday that the country needs to focus on fighting the PKK inside its borders amid a debate over whether Turkey should pursue rebels in a cross-border operation into northern Iraq.

"There are 500 terrorists in Iraq; there are 5,000 terrorists inside Turkey. Has terrorism inside Turkey ended for us to think about an operation in northern Iraq?" Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters.

Rebels of the PKK have bases in the mountainous north of Iraq.

Turkey's army chief has said an incursion into northern Iraq is necessary, but said he needed political approval to act. The government pledged to hunt down rebels, but Erdogan has not called for the parliamentary approval required for a cross-border operation.

PKK guerrillas took up arms in 1984, and tens of thousand of people have died in the conflict. The United States and European Union brand the PKK a terrorist organization.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, in Turkey on Tuesday, said the alliance hoped Turkey's conflict with the PKK could be resolved "with the maximum of restraint."