Berliner Boersenzeitung - Ocalan: PKK chief held in solitary on Turkish prison island

EUR -
AED 4.176264
AFN 79.390778
ALL 98.193331
AMD 435.359105
ANG 2.034873
AOA 1043.206027
ARS 1289.7675
AUD 1.750315
AWG 2.048029
AZN 1.937421
BAM 1.956066
BBD 2.291911
BDT 138.25877
BGN 1.95741
BHD 0.428558
BIF 3378.258635
BMD 1.137004
BND 1.460198
BOB 7.844065
BRL 6.420327
BSD 1.135154
BTN 96.761136
BWP 15.237069
BYN 3.714804
BYR 22285.28547
BZD 2.28011
CAD 1.561847
CDF 3257.517905
CHF 0.934014
CLF 0.027894
CLP 1070.435323
CNY 8.191325
CNH 8.155272
COP 4741.443703
CRC 577.378385
CUC 1.137004
CUP 30.130616
CVE 110.279972
CZK 24.862424
DJF 202.137442
DKK 7.464552
DOP 67.039101
DZD 150.321408
EGP 56.7187
ERN 17.055065
ETB 153.667162
FJD 2.560311
FKP 0.846948
GBP 0.840017
GEL 3.115836
GGP 0.846948
GHS 12.542703
GIP 0.846948
GMD 81.864718
GNF 9833.334982
GTQ 8.713183
GYD 237.482241
HKD 8.906212
HNL 29.547011
HRK 7.538002
HTG 148.530165
HUF 403.94398
IDR 18472.057095
ILS 4.106035
IMP 0.846948
INR 96.806883
IQD 1487.001877
IRR 47896.309096
ISK 145.150415
JEP 0.846948
JMD 180.384489
JOD 0.806181
JPY 162.097072
KES 146.699916
KGS 99.431468
KHR 4543.616845
KMF 494.032708
KPW 1023.258258
KRW 1552.841401
KWD 0.348504
KYD 0.945928
KZT 580.568819
LAK 24524.329445
LBP 101705.707657
LKR 339.836136
LRD 227.020821
LSL 20.317958
LTL 3.357279
LVL 0.687763
LYD 6.201842
MAD 10.434117
MDL 19.682672
MGA 5075.68908
MKD 61.538355
MMK 2387.267736
MNT 4064.582023
MOP 9.154843
MRU 45.143129
MUR 51.9729
MVR 17.578517
MWK 1968.267214
MXN 21.880062
MYR 4.81071
MZN 72.666378
NAD 20.317958
NGN 1807.613767
NIO 41.775672
NOK 11.490912
NPR 154.818018
NZD 1.899598
OMR 0.437609
PAB 1.135154
PEN 4.153064
PGK 4.653632
PHP 62.956357
PKR 319.939835
PLN 4.25999
PYG 9056.229482
QAR 4.137262
RON 5.055353
RSD 117.235916
RUB 90.212247
RWF 1626.02075
SAR 4.264548
SBD 9.494859
SCR 16.27821
SDG 682.775298
SEK 10.838385
SGD 1.46367
SHP 0.893507
SLE 25.833161
SLL 23842.413185
SOS 648.688066
SRD 42.270984
STD 23533.694664
SVC 9.932348
SYP 14782.417917
SZL 20.312758
THB 36.956096
TJS 11.63488
TMT 3.9852
TND 3.392961
TOP 2.662982
TRY 44.176603
TTD 7.716048
TWD 34.07864
TZS 3061.915688
UAH 47.117797
UGX 4143.562534
USD 1.137004
UYU 47.156402
UZS 14647.988624
VES 107.840913
VND 29509.811178
VUV 137.766044
WST 3.14678
XAF 656.046065
XAG 0.03395
XAU 0.000339
XCD 3.072812
XDR 0.815911
XOF 656.046065
XPF 119.331742
YER 277.258926
ZAR 20.288547
ZMK 10234.40773
ZMW 31.045215
ZWL 366.11494
  • SCS

    -0.0600

    10.09

    -0.59%

  • VOD

    -0.0700

    10.47

    -0.67%

  • BCC

    -0.7700

    86.56

    -0.89%

  • RELX

    0.4600

    55.44

    +0.83%

  • GSK

    -0.2600

    38.66

    -0.67%

  • RBGPF

    65.0500

    65.05

    +100%

  • NGG

    1.1600

    74.79

    +1.55%

  • RIO

    0.4600

    61.58

    +0.75%

  • RYCEF

    0.1200

    11.32

    +1.06%

  • CMSD

    0.1600

    21.89

    +0.73%

  • JRI

    0.0500

    12.69

    +0.39%

  • BCE

    0.0600

    21.53

    +0.28%

  • CMSC

    -0.0200

    21.94

    -0.09%

  • AZN

    0.4600

    70.41

    +0.65%

  • BTI

    0.6200

    45.22

    +1.37%

  • BP

    0.1500

    29.09

    +0.52%

Ocalan: PKK chief held in solitary on Turkish prison island
Ocalan: PKK chief held in solitary on Turkish prison island / Photo: JOSEPH BARRAK - AFP/File

Ocalan: PKK chief held in solitary on Turkish prison island

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed founder of Kurdish militant group the PKK is hailed by many Kurds as an icon, but within wider Turkish society many see him as a terrorist who deserves to die.

Text size:

On Saturday, Ocalan, who has been held in solitary confinement in Turkey since 1999, received his first political visit in nearly a decade amid signs of a tentative thaw in relations with the Turkish government.

The move came two months after the leader of the far-right MHP, a close ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, offered Ocalan an unprecedented olive branch if he would publicly renounce terror.

In a message sent back with his visitors, two lawmakers from the pro-Kurd opposition DEM party, Ocalan -- the man who embodies the decades-long Kurdish rebellion against the Turkish government -- said he was "ready" to embrace efforts to end the conflict.

"I am ready to take the necessary positive steps and make the call," said the 75-year-old former guerrilla, who also received his first family visit in four years on October 23.

During that visit, Ocalan said he had the necessary clout to shift the Kurdish question "from an arena of conflict and violence to one of law and politics".

Ankara's tentative bid to reopen dialogue nearly a decade after peace efforts collapsed comes amid a major regional adjustment following the ouster of Syria's Bashar al-Assad.

- PKK: a Marxist-inspired group -

Ocalan founded the PKK -- the Kurdistan Workers' Party -- in 1978. It spearheaded a brutal insurgency that has killed tens of thousands in its fight for independence and, more recently, broader autonomy in Turkey's mostly Kurdish southeast.

A Marxist-inspired group, the PKK is considered a terror organisation by Turkey, the United States, the European Union and most of Turkey's Western allies.

After years on the run, Ocalan was arrested on February 15, 1999 in Kenya following a Hollywood-style operation by Turkish security forces.

He was sentenced to death, but escaped the gallows when Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2004. He has since been held in an isolation cell on Imrali island in the Sea of Marmara.

For many Kurds, he is hero they call "Apo" (uncle). But Turks often call him "bebek katili" (baby killer) for his ruthless tactics, including the bombing of civilian targets.

- Involvement in peace talks -

Tentative moves to resolve Turkey's "Kurdish problem" began in 2008. Several years later, Ocalan got involved in the first unofficial peace talks, approved when Erdogan was premier.

Seen as the world's largest stateless people, Kurds were left without a country when the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I.

Although most live in Turkey, where they make up around a fifth of the population, the Kurds are also spread across Syria, Iraq and Iran.

For hardline nationalists who support the post-Ottoman idea of "Turkishness", the Kurds simply do not exist.

And not all Kurds back the ideas, let alone the methods, of the PKK.

Led by Hakan Fidan, Erdogan's spy chief turned foreign minister, the talks raised hopes of ending the insurgency in favour of an equitable solution for Kurdish rights within Turkey's borders.

But they collapsed in July 2015, reigniting one of the deadliest chapters in the conflict.

After a suicide attack on pro-Kurdish demonstrators attributed to Islamic State (IS) group jihadists in October 2015, the PKK accused Ankara of collaborating with IS and resumed its violence with a vengeance.

Turkey's widescale use of combat drones has pushed most Kurdish fighters into Iraq and Syria, where Ankara has continued raids.

The government has defended its de facto silencing of Ocalan by saying he failed to convince the PKK of the need for peace, raising doubts about how much sway he has over the group.

- Captured in exile -

Ocalan was born on April 4, 1948, one of six siblings in a mixed Turkish-Kurdish peasant family in Omerli village, in Turkey's southeast. His mother tongue is Turkish.

He became a left-wing activist while studying politics at university in Ankara, and did his first stint in prison in 1972.

He set up the PKK six years later, then spent years on the run, launching the movement's armed struggle in 1984.

Taking refuge in Syria, he led the fight from there, causing friction between Damascus and Ankara.

Forced out in 1998 and with the net closing in, Ocalan raced from Russia to Italy to Greece in search of a haven, ending up at the Greek consulate in Kenya, where US agents got wind of his presence and tipped off ally Ankara.

Lured into a vehicle and told he would be flown to the Netherlands, Ocalan was instead handed over to Turkish military commandos and flown home on a private plane to face trial.

(Y.Berger--BBZ)