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TURKEY reacted stoically today to a ruling from the
European human rights court condemning the trial it
put on for the captured Kurdish rebel leader
Abdullah Ocalan, who it sees as a "terrorist", in
1999.
"The Turkish Republic is a state based on the rule
of law and will undertake the procedures that the
law requires," Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat, the deputy
chairman of the governing Justice and Development
Party, told reporters.
"If the rest of the world wants to review the case
of a terrorist, the Turkish judiciary is independent
and Turkey is a transparent state of law," he said.
In a widely expected ruling, the European Court of
Human Rights said the trial, which saw Ocalan
sentenced to death for treason, was unfair and
called for a retrial of the rebel leader who is
currently serving a life sentence on a prison island
after Turkey scrapped capital punishment three years
ago.
The Strasbourg-based court's ruling is not binding
on Ankara, but has far-reaching implications on the
popularity of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's
government at home and its ambitions to join the
European Union.
The EU today bluntly reminded Turkey that it had to
abide by European institutions and values if it
wants to succeed in EU membership talks set to begin
on October 3.
"As a member of the Council of Europe and because of
(EU) candidate country status, it is evident, Turkey
will have to comply with the decision of the
European Court of Human Rights," EU enlargement
commissioner Olli Rehn told reporters in Nicosia.
A possible retrial would largely be seen as a test
of Ankara's arguments that it has overhauled its
judicial system to European standards and could win
Ankara points amid a raging debate on whether the
country has a place in Europe.
Its main objective would be to rectify procedural
flaws that the European Court of Human Rights found
in the original trial and is not expected to result
in a more lenient sentence.
But it could also unleash fierce public anger in
Turkey.
Ocalan, 56, is still a figure of hatred for many
Turks for his role as the leader of the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which waged a bloody
campaign between 1984 and 1999 for self-rule in
Turkey's mainly Kurdish south-east. Some 37,000
people were killed in the fighting.
Faced with the risk of a backlash, Mr Erdogan vowed
today that he would not let the ruling stir tensions
at home or deviate Turkey from its European
vocation.
"I want to particularly emphasise that temporal
problems cannot influence neither our national unity
nor our EU (membership) objective," Mr Erdogan told
reporters during an official visit to Budapest, the
Anatolia news agency reported.
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