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

EUR -
AED 4.151031
AFN 80.247598
ALL 98.522497
AMD 440.676983
ANG 2.03683
AOA 1036.333768
ARS 1328.501642
AUD 1.753235
AWG 2.034242
AZN 1.925715
BAM 1.955254
BBD 2.287261
BDT 137.631579
BGN 1.955254
BHD 0.427081
BIF 3369.55937
BMD 1.130135
BND 1.46989
BOB 7.827815
BRL 6.392724
BSD 1.132784
BTN 95.735275
BWP 15.423694
BYN 3.707265
BYR 22150.636537
BZD 2.275465
CAD 1.562355
CDF 3244.616608
CHF 0.934673
CLF 0.027965
CLP 1073.13043
CNY 8.217891
CNH 8.149807
COP 4824.153313
CRC 572.840089
CUC 1.130135
CUP 29.948565
CVE 110.234228
CZK 24.915515
DJF 201.723688
DKK 7.46443
DOP 66.531427
DZD 149.637228
EGP 57.340993
ERN 16.952018
ETB 151.585884
FJD 2.549475
FKP 0.850941
GBP 0.851871
GEL 3.09701
GGP 0.850941
GHS 15.915557
GIP 0.850941
GMD 80.80897
GNF 9812.260857
GTQ 8.724564
GYD 237.693647
HKD 8.75866
HNL 29.418788
HRK 7.535063
HTG 147.848727
HUF 404.554691
IDR 18609.868588
ILS 4.054588
IMP 0.850941
INR 95.52632
IQD 1483.985738
IRR 47592.794167
ISK 146.13813
JEP 0.850941
JMD 179.679841
JOD 0.801496
JPY 163.671776
KES 146.529096
KGS 98.830698
KHR 4538.73299
KMF 491.047735
KPW 1017.036387
KRW 1582.079593
KWD 0.346545
KYD 0.944036
KZT 585.226631
LAK 24496.161771
LBP 101499.66585
LKR 339.215306
LRD 226.566753
LSL 20.853079
LTL 3.336994
LVL 0.683608
LYD 6.185273
MAD 10.503968
MDL 19.484561
MGA 5144.563869
MKD 61.512828
MMK 2372.392072
MNT 4038.466774
MOP 9.044175
MRU 45.120404
MUR 51.229425
MVR 17.4158
MWK 1964.251669
MXN 22.128603
MYR 4.816073
MZN 72.328998
NAD 20.853079
NGN 1812.408452
NIO 41.688362
NOK 11.772164
NPR 153.17624
NZD 1.900824
OMR 0.434829
PAB 1.132784
PEN 4.153141
PGK 4.696689
PHP 62.73419
PKR 318.31924
PLN 4.273807
PYG 9063.469886
QAR 4.133846
RON 4.978925
RSD 117.167292
RUB 93.723837
RWF 1598.853672
SAR 4.235618
SBD 9.425806
SCR 16.068296
SDG 678.649932
SEK 10.911001
SGD 1.46884
SHP 0.888108
SLE 25.756185
SLL 23698.337407
SOS 647.41927
SRD 41.617247
STD 23391.502773
SVC 9.912233
SYP 14692.920352
SZL 20.844181
THB 37.390543
TJS 11.724527
TMT 3.955471
TND 3.398551
TOP 2.646892
TRY 43.467012
TTD 7.681856
TWD 34.716946
TZS 3050.648396
UAH 47.296997
UGX 4149.841551
USD 1.130135
UYU 47.53673
UZS 14612.920729
VES 98.025574
VND 29389.148119
VUV 136.913075
WST 3.1399
XAF 655.773937
XAG 0.035286
XAU 0.000349
XCD 3.054245
XDR 0.815572
XOF 655.773937
XPF 119.331742
YER 276.48782
ZAR 20.787473
ZMK 10172.570869
ZMW 31.441223
ZWL 363.902853
  • RBGPF

    67.2100

    67.21

    +100%

  • CMSD

    0.0600

    22.32

    +0.27%

  • NGG

    0.0300

    71.68

    +0.04%

  • RELX

    0.9400

    55.02

    +1.71%

  • GSK

    0.3200

    39.07

    +0.82%

  • CMSC

    0.0700

    22.1

    +0.32%

  • RIO

    1.1500

    59.7

    +1.93%

  • AZN

    1.9300

    72.44

    +2.66%

  • BTI

    -0.1300

    43.17

    -0.3%

  • SCS

    0.2700

    10.14

    +2.66%

  • BP

    0.2400

    28.12

    +0.85%

  • JRI

    0.0600

    13.07

    +0.46%

  • BCC

    3.4400

    96.15

    +3.58%

  • BCE

    0.0100

    21.45

    +0.05%

  • RYCEF

    0.1300

    10.35

    +1.26%

  • VOD

    -0.1200

    9.61

    -1.25%

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)