Jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, the only
prisoner for a decade on the Imrali Island in the
Turkish Sea of Marmara. Photo:
HPG
•
See Related Articles
January 15, 2013
ISTANBUL,—
The jailed leader of Turkey's Kurd rebels, Abdullah
Ocalan, condemned on Monday the
killing of three Kurdish women
activists in Paris, one of them a longtime comrade,
the Anatolia news agency reported, quoting his
brother.
"It was a very sad get-together," Mehmet Ocalan told
reporters after a visit to the prison island of
Imrali near Istanbul, where his brother, the leader
of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has been kept
for 14 years.
"He is very saddened by the massacre in France and
condemns it," he added, referring to the killing of
the three activists on Thursday in an attack dubbed
an "internal feud" by Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan.
The killings came days after Turkish media reported
that Turkey and Ocalan had
reached a roadmap to end the Kurds'
three-decade insurgency.
"This massacre is a sign. No matter what you call
it, it needs to be clarified as soon as possible,"
Ocalan relayed his jailed brother as saying.
The bodies of the
three women -- Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Dogan and Leyla
Soylemez -- are expected to be brought back to
Turkey on Wednesday to be buried in their hometowns
the following day.
Three Kurdish women, political activists, were shot
dead on January 10, in Paris. The women
were found in the early hours with gunshot
wounds to the head outside the Kurdish Institute
of Paris ((Institut
kurde de Paris) on Rue Lafayette in central Paris,www.ekurd.net police and the centre's director said. The victims
are Fidan Dogan, 28-year-old, Leyla Soylemez,
25-year-old and Sakine Cansiz, 55-year-old.
Cansiz was a
co-founder of
the PKK and believed to be a close comrade of
Ocalan's, leading to speculation that her murder was
meant as a message to the jailed leader.
Plans for the burial have already raised tensions in
Turkey, with government spokesman Bulent Arinc
calling on Turkey's Kurdish minority to "keep their
calm" during the ceremonies.
"The funeral should not grow into a bigger
provocation," Arinc told reporters, describing the
killings as a "reason to worry" that there might be
attempts to derail the peace talks.
The Turkish government has not confirmed the
reported roadmap, but acknowledged in December that
a fresh round of talks was being held between
Turkey's intelligence agency and Ocalan with the
ultimate aim of disarming the rebels.
100,00 Kurds from all over Europe took to the streets
on Saturday in the French capital to
condemn the killing of three
Kurdish activists in three days ago, ANF news agency reported.
Since it was established in 1984, the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state,
which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to establish a Kurdish
state in the south east of the country. By 2012, more than 45,000 Turkish
soldiers and PKK rebels have since been
killed.
But now its aim is the creation an autonomous region and more cultural rights
for ethnic Kurds who constitute the greatest minority in Turkey. A large
Turkey's Kurdish community, numbering to
25 million,
openly sympathise with PKK rebels.
Abdullah Öcalan, who founded the PKK in 1974, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and
worldwide.
The PKK wants constitutional recognition for the Kurds, regional
self-governance and Kurdish-language education in schools.
PKK's demands included releasing PKK detainees,
lifting the ban on education in Kurdish, paving the
way for an autonomous democrat Kurdish system within
Turkey, reducing pressure on the detained PKK leader
Abdullah Öcalan, stopping military action against
the Kurdish party and recomposing the Turkish
constitution.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population
as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural
rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish
language and private Kurdish language courses with
the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish
politicians say the measures fall short of their
expectations.
The PKK is considered as 'terrorist' organization by
Ankara, U.S., the PKK continues to be on the
blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which
overturned
a decision to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and
its political wing on the European Union's terror
list.
Copyright ©, respective author or news agency,
AFP | Ekurd.net | Agencies
Top |
