Turkey is holding talks with the jailed head of an outlawed Kurdish group, the PKK, to push for its disarmament.
Abdullah Ocalan, who has been found guilty of treason, is being held in solitary confinement on an island prison.
He was sentenced to death in 1999, which was later commuted to life imprisonment after the abolition of the death penalty in Turkey in 2002.
Prime ministerial adviser Yalcin Akdogan said the government had concluded that it would be unlikely to defeat the PKK militarily and the intelligence services were holding discussions with Ocalan.
"The goal is the disarmament of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party)," he said in an interview with NTV television.
"The government supports any dialogue to this end that could result in a halt to violence. You cannot get results and abolish an organisation only with armed struggle."
He said Ocalan was the "main actor" in efforts to resolve the Kurdish conflict. However he questioned whether Ocalan fully controlled elements operating from northern Iraq.
The Hurriyet newspaper said officials from the National Intelligence Organisation held a meeting lasting four hours with Ocalan on 23 December.
The BBC reports the PKK has waged a guerrilla campaign in south-east Turkey for more than 25 years, seeking an ethnic homeland for the Kurdish people. Some 40,000 people have died in the conflict.
Kurds are thought to make up more than 20% of the population of Turkey.
