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ANKARA, May 20 (Reuters) - Turkey will not retry
jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan after
Europe's top human rights court ruled his 1999
prosecution was unfair, Foreign Minister Abdullah
Gul was quoted as saying on Friday.
But Gul did not rule out taking up an alternative
recommendation from the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR) that the original case against Ocalan
be reopened.
"The court said retry him or reopen the file due to
this or that procedural inadequacy," Milliyet daily
quoted Gul as saying in an interview with television
station Kanal D.
"Since we have the option to reopen and look at the
file, we are honestly not thinking of taking any
steps for a retrial."
The government earlier signalled it might retry
Ocalan after last Thursday's ECHR ruling, which
comes at a sensitive time for Ankara as it tries to
meet European Union human rights standards before
the expected start of EU entry talks in October.
Any move to re-examine Ocalan's case will face
strong opposition at home from Turkish nationalists
who see the ECHR verdict as an example of European
bias against Turkey.
Ocalan is widely reviled in Turkey as a terrorist
for leading a Kurdish separatist rebellion in which
at least 30,000 people, mainly Kurds, have been
killed. But he remains a figurehead for many members
of Turkey's large Kurdish minority.
He was sentenced to death in 1999 but capital
punishment has since been abolished as part of
Turkey's EU-inspired reforms.
The verdict of the Strasbourg-based court must still
be confirmed by the Council of Europe, to which
Turkey belongs.
Gul said this was the first time the ECHR had ruled
on the head of a major terrorist organisation --
Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) -- and the
fact that it gave options in its verdict showed the
court was "uncomfortable".
"This is a problem for the whole of Turkey. Making
politics out of this will neither benefit Turkey,
nor help us get rid of this problem easily," he
said.
"We have to do our work meticulously so we don't
have fresh problems and face new retrials or new
files."
Turkish media have reacted calmly to the ECHR
verdict, noting that it ruled against Turkey on a
technical procedural matter and did not question
Ocalan's conviction.
Reuters
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