Press Release

February 16, 1999

Telephone: (202) 483-6444

AKIN Condemns Apparent Greek and U.S. Complicity in Arrest of Ocalan; Calls on International Community to Oppose Turkey's Genocidal Campaign Against the Kurds

Washington, DC: The delivery of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan into the hands of the Turkish government raises a number of troubling questions about the complicity of Greece, Kenya and the United States in the Turkish military's genocidal campaign against the Kurdish people.

Conflicting reports of Ocalan's arrest from the Greek and Kenyan governments point to their cooperation with the Turkish government's anti-Kurdish campaign which, under the banner of anti-terrorism, has razed countless Kurdish villages, committed widespread torture, and denied a people their basic human and cultural rights.

Earlier today, the Embassy of Greece in Washington, DC, issued a statement noting that because Ocalan had intended to go to Holland the Greek government was freed of any responsibility for his safety. Without providing any explanation, the Greek Embassy reported that Ocalan somehow fell into the custody of the Kenyan police officers, who then apparently handed him over to the government of Turkey. The Greek Embassy statement failed to make reference to the diplomatic protocol that its Embassy's grounds are considered Greek soil and that, accordingly, the Kenyan authorities could not have entered the Embassy compound without the consent of the Greek government.

In sharp contrast to the Greek government's version of the arrest, the Kenyan Foreign Minister Bonaya Godana flatly denied the Greek government's version of events. Godana reported that he simply asked the Greek Ambassador to Kenya to have Ocalan be removed from the grounds of the Greek Embassy, but that his government would not in any way have been involved in handing Ocalan over to the Turkish government.

These conflicting reports and, particularly, the highly suspect version of the events surrounding Ocalan's arrest being put forward by the Greek government suggests a break with Greece's traditional support for the democratic aspirations of the Kurdish nation. Sources in the region attribute this move to heavy pressure on Athens from the United States government. The exact role of Kenya remains unclear, although it appears as though outside interests may have played a role in either orchestrating or, at the very least, heavily influencing the Kenyan government's actions.

Greece's role holds a telling irony, in that the Greek government's involvement in Ocalan's arrest directly benefits Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, the very same man who ordered the invasion of Cyprus in 1974. It only adds to this irony that Ecevit, America's 3supposed2 key friend in the region, recently hosted Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, despite Washington's long-standing opposition to the Iraqi regime. Double standards, it would seem, do not trouble those who would deny the Kurds their basic rights even as they carry the banner of democratic ideals and international cooperation.

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) condemns any complicity on the part of Greece, Kenya, the United States or other states in the Turkish government's genocidal campaign against the Kurdish people. AKIN joins with all Kurdish organizations to call upon the peoples of the world to support the democratic aspirations of the Kurdish nation and a political settlement of the Kurdish question in Turkey.