THE Turkish government yesterday welcomed an agreement that brought a peaceful end to the country's biggest ever wave of prison hunger strikes, in which 11 people died.
We are very happy to finally put an end to this issue peacefully and through dialogue," a senior foreign ministry official said.
"We wish this agreement could have been reached earlier, before the deaths occurred. But many earlier demands by them (the strikers) were unacceptable," the official said.
The accord came after a group of left wing intellectuals intervened to mediate between the government and representatives of the extreme left hunger strikers in Istanbul's Bayrampasa prison, the nerve centre of the 69 day protest.
The protesters announced an end to the hunger strike at about midnight on Saturday after the government had agreed to a number of concessions.
The key point was its acceptance of the transfer of over 100 left wing prisoners from the top security Eskisehir jail in central Turkey to two prisons in and near Istanbul.
The hunger strikers had previously demanded the closure of Eskisehir jail designed to keep inmates in isolation cells but later agreed to the transfer of left wing prisoners only.
Under the accord, the government accepted the transfer of 20 inmates from Eskisehir jail to Istanbul's Umraniye prison. Another 82 prisoners in Eskisehir are to be transferred to another prison in Gebze, 20 miles east of Istanbul.
"Our decision to let the transfers to Umraniye shows our flexibility and will to accept a humane solution" the official said.
Earlier, the Turkish Justice Minister, Mr Sevket Kazan, ruled out any transfer to Umraniye or Bayrampasa, saying the dormitories in the two prisons were under the control of outlawed left wing organisations.
In the final agreement with the hunger strikers the government also pledged to improve conditions in prisons and to provide better health services.
A 12th prisoner died early yesterday on his way to hospital only hours after the accord was reached.
The hunger strike claimed the lives of 11 other prisoners throughout last week. Nearly 300 prisoners had been taking part in the protest, and scores of them, hunger striking for more than 60 days, were reportedly near death. Many, doctors warned, will never fully recover.
The government had come under mounting domestic and international pressure to give in to at least some of the strikers' demands Mr Kazan, a leading supporter of the new Islamist Prime Minister, Mr Necmettin Erbakan, said on Saturday that the government particularly wanted to reach a settlement that day, a religious festival marking the birthday of the prophet Muhammad.
Last week, the minister threatened to intervene in the prisons and forcibly remove the hunger strikers to hospital.