Book probes Ocalan affair

‘The Kurdish Trap’ offers fascinating insights and lessons to
politicians on both sides of Aegean

Kathimerini, Athens (English Edition)
11-09-2004

By Burak Bekdil

The book is still fresh on bookstore shelves in Turkey, but it’s already a
best seller. “The Kurdish Trap” not only gives the reader the most detailed
insight so far on an episode the Turks recall with quite a lot of pride,
but
also offers an excellent narrative of how the Aegean neighbors wisely
avoided the most recent unpleasant chapter in their history.

“The Kurdish Trap” is the odyssey of Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the
outlawed
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), now in solitary confinement in a military
prison, between Oct. 1, 1998, when his days in his Damascus safe haven were
numbered, and Feb. 15, 1999, when he was delivered by American agents to
Turkish special forces at Nairobi airport – after he was “deported” from
the
Greek Embassy in the Kenyan capital.

The book’s author is Murat Yetkin, one of Turkey’s most prominent
journalists and presently Ankara bureau chief for Radikal, a daily
newspaper
many people view as Turkey’s “Guardian.” For “The Kurdish Trap,” Mr Yetkin
interviewed American diplomats and intelligence officers as well as
Turkey’s
top government, military and intelligence officials who were in office
during the PKK leader’s forced journey across three continents. His
revelations are stunning in many ways.

On Sept. 30, 1998, a day before President Suleyman Demirel was to make his
annual speech in Parliament, his foreign-policy advisers came up with a
speech text that, as the president had ordered them to do, contained a
warning to Syria not to harbor Ocalan any longer. Having read the text, Mr
Demirel looked bitterly at his advisers and said: “Make it tougher.
Threaten
Syria.”

President Demirel’s speech on Oct. 1 was the beginning of a new and very
tense chapter between Ankara and Damascus. In his speech the president
bitterly reminded the Assad regime of the 30,000 dead, and openly said
Syria
should either stop harboring the man responsible for the bloodshed or
suffer
the consequences. Twelve days later, Army Commander General Atilla Ates
echoed the threat in a military tone. Turkey would begin reinforcing its
troops bordering Syria, then launched military exercises in the eastern
Mediterranean, and, eventually, began a hot pursuit after the PKK
terrorists
infiltrating Turkish territory from across the Syrian border. Operational
plans showed the first Turkish troops would set foot in Damascus in 8-12
days. The choice belonged to President Hafez al-Assad.

After increased pressure from Ankara and Washington, and intensive
diplomatic efforts from Egypt and Iran – both of which thought a military
confrontation in the region was against their interests – Assad, much
sooner
than Turkey expected, agreed to stop sheltering Ocalan.

Ocalan was put on a plane en route to Athens. That was the beginning of
trouble for the PASOK government. Prime Minister Costas Simitis, reportedly
despite objections from Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos, ordered
Ocalan’s
immediate deportation from Greek territory. After a breathtaking diplomatic
confrontation between Turkey, Italy and Russia, Ocalan ended up in Athens
briefly, and later in Corfu before, once again on orders from Mr
Simitis, he
was packed into a Falcon 900 and, carrying a false Cyprus passport under
the
name of Lazaros Mavros, sent to Kenya until the Americans decided it was
time to deliver him to the Turks. Most of the odyssey is in the public
domain. But “The Kurdish Trap” reveals many details not known before.

New findings

For example, the book tells of contacts between the PKK, which it refers to
as the “unwanted baby of the Kurdish problem” and a bunch of PASOK members
led by Costas Badouvas in the 1990s. A photo in the book shows Mr Badouvas
discussing with Ocalan, over a map, possible energy routes via Turkey. It
cannot be a coincidence, Mr Yetkin argues, that the Armenian killing
machine, ASALA, which murdered dozens of Turkish diplomats in the ’70s and
early ’80s, was dismantled in 1983-84, the same year as the PKK took the
stage.

Mr Yetkin reveals that the Turkish secret services had attempted to
assassinate Ocalan at his Damascus home in the mid-1990s, but the effort
failed when a ton of explosives blew out a whole street when Ocalan was not
at home. Most interestingly, Mr Yetkin claims the Turkish secret services
had also attempted to kill Admiral Adonis Naksakis, a Greek naval
intelligence officer, shortly after his meeting with Ocalan at Lebanon’s
Bika Valley, once home to thousands of PKK gunmen. It’s a funny story:

“Yesil, a code name for a Kurdish hit man often used by the Turkish
services
and now on a wanted list, had been tasked with assassinating Admiral
Naksakis. He went to Athens for the job with a team of his own. When they
ended up driving in the wrong direction on a one-way Athens street, they
were caught by the Greek police, interrogated under detention for a few
days, but then released without revealing their true mission in Athens.” Mr
Yetkin says a Turkish intelligence officer confirmed the story.

According to the book, Turkish intelligence was also behind a series of
explosions on the Greek mainland and islands, in retaliation for the
alleged
Greek support for the PKK’s campaign in the 1990s to set Turkish forests
ablaze.

But throughout the whole episode Prime Minister Simitis was very determined
to stay away from trouble. In his defense in court, Ocalan recalls his
first
landing in Athens: “My arrival in Athens was the product of our contacts
with Badouvas. I had asked (the Greeks) 10 times whether the circumstances
for my arrival were appropriate. The answer was positive each time. At the
airport, I saw (Greek intelligence chief) Haralambos Stavrakakis and
(another intelligence officer) Savvas Kalenderidis. They were in a state of
panic. They threatened me: Unless I left Athens by 5 p.m. the same day I
would be forced to do so. Badouvas never showed up.” Ocalan’s next stop was
Russia, where he stayed at Vladimir Zhrinovsky’s house until Ankara
convinced Moscow that Ocalan had to be deported.

Ocalan further reveals the “Greek connection.”

“…We once bought scores of Russian-made ground-to-air missiles from
Serbia
through funds collected in Greece and under guidance of the Greek secret
services.”

But during those days Turkey’s primary target was Italy, where Ocalan
stayed
for 66 days amid massive Turkish protests. The book claims that the Turkish
secret services were so frustrated by the Italian behavior over Ocalan that
they put together an assassination plot against him in Rome. But instead,
they made a wiser move. The book says the intelligence chiefs in Ankara
told
of their plan to the CIA’s local station chief and “requested the American
service’s assistance in neutralizing the Italians when the attempt was
to be
made.”

That move, according to Mr Yetkin, convinced the Americans that the Turks
had become so crazy and obsessed with Ocalan that they could do anything
insane to get him. Something truly crazy might have caused turmoil in
Turkey’s
ties with the Western world, and that was entirely against American
interests. That was the beginning of the end for Ocalan.

After Italy’s communist prime minister, Massimo D’Alema, could no longer
resist the pressure, Ocalan went to Russia once again on Jan. 16, 1999. A
very hot potato unwanted by every country, even Armenia, due to increased
Turkish-American pressure, Ocalan had to spend nine days in Tadzhikistan,
then went to St Petersburg, and finally to Athens again. At the time, Mr
Simitis’s differences with Mr Pangalos over Ocalan were deepening.

On one occasion, according to unidentified sources referred to by Mr
Yetkin,
when Mr Pangalos discussed with Mr Simitis the issue of possible political
asylum for Ocalan, the Greek prime minister said bluntly: “You are not to
meet with (Ocalan). And that person will leave this country at once.”

These were the conditions Ocalan was put aboard a plane heading first for
Minsk, then back to Athens, and on to Corfu when head of the Turkish
intelligence, Senkal Atasagun sent a fax message to his Greek counterpart,
Mr Stavrakakis, saying: “We know where Ocalan is. This is going to cause a
lot of trouble between Turkey and Greece.” Mr Simitis once again called Mr
Pangalos: Finish off this business.

Ocalan’s days at the residence of the Greek ambassador to Nairobi, Giorgios
Kostoulas, ended in a way that is known to more or less everyone. But the
breakthrough, according to Mr Yetkin, came up on Feb. 4 when the CIA’s
station chief in Ankara called Mr Atasagun and gave him the good news:
President Bill Clinton had endorsed Ocalan’s capture by the American agents
and his delivery to the Turks on condition of a “fair trial and no capital
punishment.” The Kurdish trap was finally beginning to work. Under pressure
from Kenyan authorities, his own government and the Americans, Ambassador
Kostoulas convinced Ocalan that he would be put aboard a plane heading for
The Hague. Hoping to be boarding a Dutch plane, Ocalan instead found
Turkish
agents greeting him: “Welcome to your homeland!”

No doubt, Mr Yetkin’s book will be much debated. But its contents are a
valuable lesson to politicians across the Aegean.

PHOTO CAPTION: Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan (c) is flanked by
masked Turkish agents as he is flown from Kenya to Turkey in February 1999.
From: Baghdasarian