ANKARA, Dec 29 (AFP) - Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit Saturday assailed the European Union's failure to include the Kurdish militant separatist organisation PKK in its anti-terrorism list, describing the omission as unpardonable. 

Ecevit also told journalists he found it inconceivable that the EU had likewise
omitted the Turkish extreme left-wing group DHKP-C. 

"No one is in any doubt that the PKK and DHKP-C are terrorist organisations," he said. 

Ankara has long complained of European leniency toward the Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK), which seeks a separate homeland for the Kurds in
south-eastern Turkey, and the extreme-left Revolutionary People's Liberation
Party-Front (DHKP-C). 

"We have been told that the PKK and DHKP-C will appear on a second
list," the prime minister said. 

"But the fact that they have not been included in the first one is unpardonable,"
he stressed. 

The EU list, announced Friday, includes groups such as Basque separatists
ETA and the Real IRA. 

The Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement that the list failed to name
organizations which Ankara had persistently asked Brussels to include. 

"However, we have received information that the EU is preparing a second
list which will include groups that pose a threat to candidate countries and
some third countries," it said. 

"According to preliminary information, the EU is considering Turkey's list of
terrorist organizations within this framework. We will closely monitor the
issue," the ministry said. 

The PKK's 15-year armed campaign has claimed more than 36,000 lives. 
 

In 1999 it announced it would end hostilities, but the truce was dismissed by
Turkish officials as a "ploy by a terrorist organization." 

The DHKP-C meanwhile aims to spark a revolution among working classes
and has carried out a number of violent attacks in the past. 

The government says the group is behind a hunger strike among mainly
left-wing prisoners in Turkish jails launched last year to protest the
introduction of new prisons with tighter security. 

Turkey says the hunger strike is being directed by DHKP-C exiles, mainly in Belgium and the Netherlands, with no intervention from local authorities to stop them.