Freedom of jailed Ocalan seen crucial for peace

Militants of the Turkish Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) have begun to withdraw from Turkey to the Kurdish autonomous provinces in northern Iraq following a May agreement to end their 40-year insurgency.

- Michael Jansen, Political Correspondent

Implementation of the peace process began in July with a symbolic destruction of weapons under the instructions of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. He called for Kurds — who make up I5-20 per cent of Turkey's population and are its largest minority — to obtain their rights through elections under Turkey's democratic political reforms.

To show good faith, Ankara has been urged to expedite the passage of laws to regulate the status of militants who have given up the armed struggle and want to remain in or return to Turkey to take part in the democratic process. The PKK said, “significant steps” must be taken.

First and foremost, Ocalan’s “freedom is crucial for this process to advance with greater effectiveness,” Kurdish spokesman Devrim Palu told AFP as the PKK began pulling out its Fighters from Turkey. Ocalan, 76, has been imprisoned since 1999 on Imrali island off stanbul. As founder of the PKK in 1978, Ocalan personifies the four-decade Kurdish rebellion against Turkey which cost 50,000 lives and wreaked massive destruction on Kurdish communities in the southeast.