- Title: TURKEY: THOUSANDS GREET RELEASED KURDISH LEADERS IN DIYARBAKIR.
- Date: 13th June 2004
- Summary: (U4) DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY (JUNE 13, 2004) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. WS: YELLOW BUS WITH RELEASED KURDISH LEADERS COMING OUT OF AIRPORT WITH CROWDS CHANTING (AUDIO) AND SHOWING THE 'VICTORY SIGN' 0.04 2. WS/CU: PEOPLE CLAPPING THEIR HANDS. (2 SHOTS) 0.15 3. MLV: BUS DRIVING THROUGH CROWD WITH RELEASED KURDS ON ROOF. 0.23 4. MV: FREED KURDS ON ROOF OF BUS WAVING. 0.31 5. WS/CU: WOMEN DANCING AND CHANTING. (2 SHOTS) 0.44 6. SCU: PEOPLE WAVING. 0.49 7. WS/MV: PARADE DRIVING THROUGH STREETS OF DIYARBAKIR. (2 SHOTS) 1.00 8. WS: RELEASED LEADERS ON BUS. 1.08 9. MV/SCU: LEYLE ZANA AND OTHER RELEASED LEADERS ON BUS. (2 SHOTS) 1.25 10. HAS: MEN MARCHING IN STREETS WAVING 'V FOR VICTORY SIGNS' 1.32 11. SCU: LEYLA ZANA BLOWING KISSES TO CROWD. 1.40 12. MLV: WELCOME CEREMONY. 1.46 13. WS: LEYLA ZANA ADDRESSING CROWD FROM BUS. 1.52 14. MV: ZANA ADDRESSING CROWD. 2.10 15. SCU: MAN TIED TO A TREE, AS A PROTEST, LISTENING TO ZANA. 2.16 16. WS: ZANA ADDRESSING CROWD AS THEY WAVE AND GIVE 'V FOR VICTORY' SIGNS. 2.32 17. HAS: RALLY. (2 SHOTS) 2.46 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 28th June 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY
- Country: Turkey
- Reuters ID: LVAA37LCFHV5T87LGGMW410R3PEG
- Story Text: Thousands welcome released Kurdish leaders as they
arrive in Diyarbakir.
Tens of thousands of Kurds wept and danced as they
welcomed four former Kurdish lawmakers freed from prison in
southeastern Turkey on Sunday (June 13) and called for an
end to clashes between soldiers and rebels.
In what seemed like a victory parade, the freed leaders
emerged from Diyarbakir's airport on top of a yellow bus
and drove through the town as thousands cheered, danced and
sang.
Waving traditional Kurdish flags of red, green and
yellow, people jammed the road to Diyarbakir, capital of
the mainly Kurdish south east, in the region's largest
rally in years.
They cheered Nobel peace prize nominee Leyla Zana and
three other former parliamentarians, freed by a court last
week after serving 10 years of a 15-year prison sentence
for links to Kurdish rebel guerrillas.
The ruling, freeing them pending appeal, coincided with
historic first Kurdish-language broadcasts on state
television, and the start of an appeal at the European
Court of Human Rights on the fate of jailed Kurdish rebel
chief Abdullah Ocalan.
The European Union has hailed their release along with
the reform of broadcasting, crucial to Muslim Turkey's bid
for EU membership.
The festival-like atmosphere at the rally belied rising
tensions in the region amid renewed fighting between
Turkish security forces and rebels of the Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK), also known as Kongra-Gel. The rebels ended a
unilateral ceasefire declared in 1998 late last month.
Addressing the crowd, Zana called on the Kurdish
Workers Party (PKK) to continue the five-year ceasefire.
Zana urged the PKK to extend the truce for six more
months, asking them to demand their rights without harming
others and saying that they should not be the instigators
of violence.
Zana and the other ex-lawmakers - Hatip Dicle, Selim
Sadak and Orhan Dogan - were stripped of their
parliamentary immunity and jailed in 1994 for ties to
Kurdish guerrillas, after taking the oath of office in
Kurdish. The 1994 conviction was upheld by a state security
court in April after a retrial ordered by the European
Court of Human Rights, which said Zana and the others were
denied a fair trial.
April's ruling brought sharp criticism from the EU. The
Ankara government is working flat-out on political and
human rights reforms and hoping to win a firm start date
for accession talks when EU leaders meet in December.
A state prosecutor called this week for the annulment
of their sentences, and the court official said an appeal
court would start hearing the case from July 8.
The government last month abolished the controversial
state security courts under which the four were tried, and
is working to set up new civilian structures to replace
them.
Zana and the others were convicted at the height of a
separatist conflict waged by Kurdish guerrillas seeking an
ethnic homeland in south-eastern Turkey.
For decades Turkey denied the very existence of its
estimated 12 million Kurds, terming them "mountain Turks."
They are, however, a large minority out of the 70 million
Turkish population. Courts came down hard on expressions of
Kurdish identity, especially after the outbreak of armed
separatism in 1984.
Dicle called on the military to end its operations
against the PKK and on the government to allow some 5,000
guerrillas holed up in northern Iraq to return and join
Turkish society.
He also described Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK commander
captured and jailed in 1999, as a potential "architect of
peace".
Ocalan is reviled by most Turks. Turkey blames him for
the deaths of more than 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, during
the PKK's armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the
south east in the 1980s and 1990s.
Some Kurds at the rally chanted slogans in support of
Ocalan, while others wept openly during Zana's speech. Many
danced to Kurdish music under the hot sun, and police kept
a close watch but did not intervene.
Two Turkish soldiers died in a bomb attack on Saturday
in the nearby Tunceli province after the military launched
a massive operation against some PKK rebels.
The violence threatens a fragile peace that has held in
the southeast since Ocalan ordered his followers from his
jail cell to withdraw from Turkey and use political means
to win their rights.
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