Syrian Kurdish PYD, Turkey's HDP leaders attend 'Ocalan conference' in Athens

ATHENS,— The leader of Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) Salih Muslim and Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-chair Selahattin Demirtas attended a conference in Athens on Monday to mark the 17th anniversary of the capture of Abdullah ocalan, the Turkey’s jailed Kurdish leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

A representative from the Greece’s ruling Syriza party, the Union of Centrists (EK) party’s leader Vassilis Leventis, former Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, Ocalan’s lawyers and a number of journalists also attended the conference, which was titled “Developments in the Middle East, the Kurdish national movement and Ocalan.”

In a speech titled “The new role of the Kurdish people in Middle East and Kurdish-Greek friendship,” Muslim underlined that Greek and Middle Eastern peoples have had cultural ties for more than 1,000 years. “Abdullah Ocalan’s ideas have helped to shape free nations in Syrian Kurdistan, Rojava [the Kurdish term for the northern, Kurdish region of Syria along the Turkish border] after 17 years,” Muslim said, and claimed that the Kurdish fighters are battling for humanitarian values.

Demirtas also spoke at the conference, claiming that if Ocalan was not in prison, it would be possible to find a solution to Turkey’s Kurdish problem and even to prevent the chaos in Syria. Commenting on the physical conditions of the prison Ocalan is held in on Imrali Island, Demirtas said Ocalan has been held in more than 30 prisons in Turkey but he has never seen another resembling the one on İmrali because it is so confined.

The HDP co-chair also said that the leaders of groups like the Islamic State group (IS) and al-Qaeda are treated with more respect in Turkey than Ocalan and claimed that some wounded IS members have received medical treatment in Turkey.

Turkey is not close to understanding Ocalan, Demirtas stated, adding that Ocalan wanted a group of journalists to visit him so he could directly address the Turkish people, but was not given the chance.

Ocalan had been forced from his long-time home in Syria by Turkish pressure in 1998, embarked on an odyssey through several European countries and ended up in the residence of the Greek ambassador in Nairobi. He was on his way from there to the airport on Feb 15 1999 when he was arrested by Turkish agents and put on a plane to Turkey.

Ocalan was put on trial on the heavily guarded prison island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul and sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life in prison, after Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2002.

According to analysts, Ocalan, who founded the PKK in 1974, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide.

The PKK initially took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 78-million population. The conflict has left tens of thousands dead.

A large Turkey’s Kurdish community openly sympathise with PKK rebels.

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