FILE: Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan is set to make a "historic" appeal, raising expectations of ceasefire in a 28-year-old conflict which has riven Turkey, killing some 40,000 people, and battered its economy

Record ID: 899032

  • Title: FILE: Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan is set to make a "historic" appeal, raising expectations of ceasefire in a 28-year-old conflict which has riven Turkey, killing some 40,000 people, and battered its economy
  • Date: 20th March 2013
  • Summary: ATHENS, GREECE (FILE - FEBRUARY 15, 1999) (REUTERS) POLICE TRYING TO BREAK UP PROTEST / FLAMES, MEN ON FIRE AFTER ONE PROTESTER SET HIMSELF ALIGHT, SMOKE AND FLAMES, PEOPLE RUNNING AROUND
  • Embargoed: 4th April 2013 22:10
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey, Switzerland, Italy, Russian Federation, Iraq
  • City:
  • Country: Russian Federation Turkey Italy Iraq Switzerland
  • Topics: Crime,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA7T7CRS86T3B3Z0PHCJJMHE2FH
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: Jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan is set to call on his fighters to halt hostilities with Turkey on Thursday (March 21) in a peace process which marks the best hope yet of ending a conflict that has killed 40,000 and handicapped the country for decades.
    In the mainly Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir, hundreds of thousands will gather at Newroz celebrations marking the Kurdish new year to hear what Ocalan has said will be a "historic call".
    His announcement will follow months of talks with Turkish intelligence officers and Kurdish politicians on the island prison in the Marmara Sea where he has been held since his capture by Turkish special forces in Kenya in 1999.
    Ocalan's statement could cement peace talks with Turkey that have been edging forward since October, possibly commanding his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas to withdraw to northern Iraq where most of its several thousand rebels are based.
    Such moves would lift a huge burden off European Union candidate Turkey, fighting the PKK since 1984 in a war which has drained state coffers, stunted development of the mainly Kurdish southeast and scarred its human rights record.
    A settlement would bolster the NATO member's credibility as it seeks to grow its influence across the Middle East, and remove a stumbling block in its ailing EU accession process.
    Truces have been declared and secret talks held with the PKK in the past, but expectations this time have been fuelled by the openness with which the process has been conducted.
    If the ceasefire holds, the path to disarmament and the reintegration of militants will still be long and vulnerable to sabotage.
    Talks with the PKK, considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union as well as Turkey, were long unthinkable to most Turks. But Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has promoted the contact since a worsening of the conflict brought rising guerrilla violence and large-scale arrests of Kurdish activists.
    Growing Kurdish assertiveness in neighbouring northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region and in war-torn Syria have only added to the sense of urgency.
    Ocalan is reviled by most Turks, many of whom hold him personally responsible for the conflict's high death toll, and the contacts have risked enraging Turkey's conservative establishment and nationalists.
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