Ocalan tells Turkey it can help itself by granting regional autonomy to
Kurds
By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Saturday, January 13, 2007

ANKARA: Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan urged Turkey on Friday
to grant its Kurdish community regional autonomy in order to resolve a
22-year conflict and avoid the kind of turmoil seen in Iraq. "I believe it
is vital for Turkey to have a strategic alliance with the Kurds," Ocalan,
the leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said in a
statement relayed by his lawyers, who met him on the prison island of
Imrali.

"What I mean is for Turkey to make peace with the Kurds living on its
territory and recognize their democratic autonomy," he explained. "Let the
Kurds have regional parliaments and governments."

Ocalan argued that such a step would not damage Turkey’s territorial
integrity but actually strengthen it.

"Otherwise, Turkey will turn into another Iraq," he warned.

The rebel leader said that he had no desire for independence, but added that
Kurds in the region would opt for breaking away if Turkey, Iran and Syria
insist on what he called their policies of oppression.

"This is not an option we desire because we know it will not provide a
solution but bring about a disaster," Ocalan said.

Ocalan’s PKK took up arms against Turkey in 1984 for independence in the
country’s mainly Kurdish southeast in a bitter conflict that has claimed
more than 37,000 lives.

Since his capture and conviction for treason in 1999, Ocalan has said on
several occasions that he wants greater political and cultural rights for
the Kurds and denied intentions to carve up an independent Kurdish homeland.

The Ankara government categorically rules out Ocalan and the PKK as an
interlocutor in the Kurdish conflict and is cool to suggestions to give its
Kurdish community any measure of autonomy. – AFP