* Hundreds on hunger strike
* Ocalan says action has achieved goals
* Pro-Kurdish party welcomes call
(Adds background, details)
By Daren Butler and Seyhmus Cakan
ISTANBUL/DIYARBAKIR, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Jailed Kurdish
militant leader Abdullah Ocalan called for an end to a hunger
strike by hundreds of his supporters in prisons across Turkey on
Saturday, raising hopes of a push to end a decades-old conflict.
The hunger strike by at least 1,700 people to demand an end
to Ocalan’s isolation is in its 67th day and doctors have said
prisoners could soon die. The protest has posed a growing
challenge to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and risked fuelling
tension in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.
“Today I went to see my brother Abdullah Ocalan face-to-face
in Imrali prison,” Ocalan’s brother Mehmet said in a statement.
“He wants me to share immediately with the public his call about
the hunger strikes …. This action has achieved its goal.
Without any hesitation, they should end the hunger strike.”
Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which
has fought for Kurdish autonomy for almost three decades, has
been imprisoned on the small island of Imrali in the Marmara Sea
since his capture in 1999.
He has significant support among Kurds but is widely reviled
by Turks who hold him responsible for the deaths of over 40,000
people since the PKK – designated a terrorist group by Turkey,
the United States and the European Union – took up arms.
The sudden announcement from Ocalan suggested a deal had
been struck to end a protest that was becoming a thorn in the
side of the government, which already has to cope with the
spillover of the crisis in neighbouring Syria.
Turkish intelligence officials have had contact with senior
figures from the PKK in the past few years, including secret
talks in Oslo in 2010 and meetings on Imrali, and Erdogan said
in September further talks were a possibility.
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), several of
whose members joined the hunger strike, said its deputies in the
city of Diyarbakir – the regional centre of the heavily Kurdish
southeast – would communicate Ocalan’s call to prisoners there.
“We hope this call will pave the way for the next process,
which is to end (Ocalan’s) isolation … The Kurdish problem
should be resolved by dialogue and deliberation,” BDP leader
Selahattin Demirtas told reporters.
Turkish media said several hundred hunger strikers in the
city of Izmir on the Aegean coast had ended their protest and
were being examined by health workers. Strikers in some other
areas were considering Ocalan’s call and were expected to make a
statement on Sunday, Kurdish politicians said.
“Our client is someone who has a serious influence over the
Kurds and so we think any call by him to end this protest action
could be influential,” Mazlum Dinc, one of Ocalan’s lawyers,
told Reuters before the statement from his brother was released.
ISOLATION
The hunger strikers have demanded an end to Ocalan’s
isolation, including access to lawyers, as well as greater
Kurdish language rights for Kurds in Turkey, who make up around
one fifth of the population.
Ocalan’s solitary confinement was eased in 2009 when five
more inmates were brought to the island. His current situation
is unclear but lawyers say he has no access to a telephone or
television and his newspapers are censored.
The lawyers say the authorities have declined their requests
to visit Ocalan 134 times since they last saw him more on July
27, 2011, usually blaming bad weather or breakdowns on the boat
that would ferry them to Imrali.
Fighting between the PKK and Turkish forces surged over the
summer. Ankara linked the renewed hostilities to the conflict in
Syria. Turkey has accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of
arming the PKK.
Erdogan’s government has boosted Kurdish cultural and
language rights since taking power a decade ago. But Kurdish
politicians are seeking greater political reform, including
steps towards autonomy for mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey.
Addressing one of the protesters’ demands, the government
has submitted to parliament a bill allowing defendants to use
Kurdish in their court testimony. But Kurdish politicians say
this alone would not be sufficient to end the hunger strike.
“The most significant demands of the hunger strikers concern
Ocalan,” one of Ocalan’s lawyers, Rezan Sarica, told Reuters.
A similar protest more than a decade ago ended with dozens
of deaths – both as a result of fasting and a security operation
to end the strike.
The justice ministry says around 1,700 people are taking
part and doctors are regularly inspecting them, although some
Kurdish officials have put the number higher. Turkey’s largest
medical association warned of fatalities after around 60 days.
(Additional reporting by Seltem Iyigun; Writing by Nick
Tattersall; editing by Jason Webb)
