ANKARA, Jan 1: Turkey’s intelligence services are in talks with jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan for disarming his PKK group in a bid to bring an end to the nearly three-decade old insurgency, officials said on Monday.

“The intelligence services are in talks with him,” Yalcin Akdogan, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's top political advisor said in televised remarks. “The goal is the disarmament of the PKK,” he said, referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party. “The government supports any dialogue to this end that could result in a halt to violence,” Akdogan said.

Ocalan remains “the main actor” in efforts to resolve the Kurdish conflict, Akdogan said, while casting doubt on his ability to influence some 2,000 militants fighting from rear bases in neighbouring Iraq. The Hurriyet newspaper reported Monday that officials from the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) held a four-hour meeting with Ocalan on December 23 to urge PKK militants, who have been fighting since 1984, to lay down their arms.—AFP