Turkey has decided to end the decade of solitary confinement of the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan. Ocalan is serving a life sentence for treason in a prison on the island of Imrali, just off Istanbul in the Marmara Sea.
Turkish security forces have transferred five convicted Kurdish terrorists to a high-security island prison where Ocalan, is serving a life sentence for treason.
Four of the transferred inmates, Bayram Kaymaz, Cumali Karsu, Seymuz Poyraz, and Hasbi Aydemir, are convicted PKK members. The fifth, Hakki Alkan, is from the outlawed Turkish Workers and Peasants' Liberation Army (TIKKO), according to a report published by the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet on Tuesday.
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli has described the move AS shameful. "I think this is a shame. The Justice and Development Party [or AKP], its prime minister and the government have been considering it for a long time," Bahceli said Tuesday. "It is a result of pressure arising from the European Union membership process."
Meanwhile, Ahmet Turk, the co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), called the decision a constructive move.
"This sort of action should have been taken 12 years ago. We were against [Ocalan's] isolation from the very beginning," he said. "At this moment there is a different approach. We see it as a positive move."
Ocalan was captured by Turkish security agents in 1999 while he was headed to the airport from the Greek Embassy in Kenya. He was sentenced to death, but when Turkey subsequently abolished the death penalty, his sentence was commuted to life in prison.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community, including Turkey, Iran, the United States, and European Union member states.
Over 40,000 people have lost their lives since the militant group launched its armed campaign against Ankara in 1984 as part of a quest to establish an independent Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey.