Ocalan calls on Kurd rebels to end struggle

ISTANBUL, Aug 3: Condemned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan on Tuesday called on the guerilla movement he founded to abandon its arme...

ISTANBUL, Aug 3: Condemned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan on Tuesday called on the guerilla movement he founded to abandon its armed struggle for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey.

The appeal will mark a major test of the influence Ocalan wields over the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) from his cell on Imrali prison island, near Istanbul.

At his trial in June, at which he was sentenced to death, Ocalan had offered to bring his fighters down from the southeastern mountains if he were spared the rope. But he had stopped short of a direct appeal for a unilateral end to fighting.

In a statement read out by his lawyers at a news conference in Istanbul on Tuesday, Ocalan said, “I call upon the PKK to end the armed struggle and withdraw their forces outside the borders of Turkey, for the sake of peace, from September 1, 1999.”

At his trial on Imrali, Ocalan had offered to use his influence over his guerrillas to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict. At the same time he said thousands woulddie in violence if he were hanged.

Clashes between the PKK and Turkish troops have continued unabated.

Ocalan’s death verdict is at the court of appeals. If upheld, it will come before parliament, which must decide whether to approve it or not. With an appeal also pending at the European Court of Human Rights, it could be more than a year before the issue of his execution arises.