ANKARA: Turkey Tuesday said improving democratic rights was key to its plan to end a 25-year Kurdish insurgency, as the government tried to win over opponents who accuse it of giving into "terrorists" and undermining national unity.

In a speech often interrupted by shouts from opposition benches, Interior Minister Besir Atalay set out a a general overview of the government's initiative, but gave no indication of the concrete steps it would take in the process.

"We believe that democratisation will resolve a terrorism problem that has ethnic nationalism at its root," Atalay told the assembly. "This means an environment where everyone feels as an equal citizen of the state and is not seen as the 'other'."

But he underlined that the plan would "never contain elements that would cripple our unitary structure, our unity."

"This is a project of national unity and fraternity," he said.

Since August, the government has sought to build support for its initiative which is expected to give wider rights to the country's estimated 12 million Kurds and thus get the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to lay down arms.

"We are facing a serious terrorism problem that becomes more intractable as a solution is delayed," Atalay said. "It is high time this problem is resolved through real and lasting solutions."

He added that the government could give specific details of its plan in a second-round debate set for Thursday when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to address parliament.

The opposition slammed the government for moves that would underscore ethnic faultlines in Turkey and accused it of caving into the PKK, which has been fighting for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.

"This is a project of treason and destruction," Kemal Erdal Sipahi, a lawmaker from the nationalist opposition, said, adding that the government project would divide the country along ethnic lines.

Onur Oymen, a member of the social-democratic main opposition party, charged that the government was negotiating with the PKK and "legitimasing terrorism."

Media reports suggest the Kurdish peace plan may include lifting restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language, allowing the return of 12,000 Turkish Kurds currently in a camp in Iraq and investing several million dollars to tackle poverty and unemployment in the southeast.

In a new move which could be part of the reconciliation plan, the government Tuesday submitted to parliament a bill envisaging lenient sentences against minors who are caught in pro-PKK demonstrations.

But critics say Erdogan could end up paying a political cost if the government moves to grant specific rights to Kurds.

"The Kurdish opening could result in a net loss in popular support for the ruling party due to a nationalist backlash," Wolfango Piccoli from the Eurasia group, a London-based political risk consultancy firm, said in a note to investors.

Erdogan has said he will not back down from his plan, but also underlined that his government will never negotiate with the PKK and that military measures against the rebels will continue unabated.

The PKK, however, says it will not abandon its armed struggle as long as Ankara keeps up military operations and fails to give official recognition to its Kurds in the constitution.

"Discussing the Kurdish question in parliament is an opportunity to resolve the problem. But parliament should discuss ways to achieve lasting peace and not approach the issue through narrow political interests," the group said in a statement Monday.