Turkey's plan to expand language rights for Kurds and prevent discrimination is unlikely to persuade armed rebels to lay down arms and risks heightening nationalist anger at the government for caving in to "terrorists", analysts said yesterday.

In a tumultuous parliamentary session last Friday, Interior Minister Besir Atalay gave the first concrete details of a government project to grant the country's estimated 12 million Kurds wider rights with the hope of ending a 25-year separatist campaign by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Among the measures were allowing Kurdish-majority towns to use their old Kurdish names, lifting restrictions on Kurdish to be used in political campaigning and allowing convicts to speak in Kurdish with visiting relatives. The government will also create independent commissions to prevent discrimination and torture, Atalay said.