Abdullah ocalan biography
•
Abdullah Öcalan
Founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
Abdullah Öcalan (OH-jə-lahn;[10]Turkish:[œdʒaɫan]; born 4 April or ), also known as Apo[10][11] (short for Abdullah in Turkish; Kurdish for "uncle"),[12][13] is a founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).[14][15]
Öcalan was based in Syria from to [16] He helped found the PKK in , and led it into the Kurdish–Turkish conflict in For most of his leadership, he was based in Syria, which provided sanctuary to the PKK until the late s.
After being forced to leave Syria, Öcalan was abducted by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) in Nairobi, Kenya in February and imprisoned on İmralı island in Turkey,[17] where after a trial he was sentenced to death under Article of the Turkish Penal Code, which concerns the formation of armed organizations.[18] The sentence was commuted
•
Middle East Quarterly
Abdullah (Apo) Öcalan is the founder and leader of the Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan (PKK) or Kurdistan Workers Party, an organization the U.S. government deems to be terrorist. Born around in southeastern Turkey, Öcalan was a sometime student in political science at Ankara University in , where he began to form his ideas on
Kurdish nationalism. Öcalan created the PKK in November , moved to Syria in May , and began the current war against Turkey in August By the spring of , the PKK’s activities had led to more than 3, villages partially or totally destroyed, 27, deaths, and up to 3 million people displaced. Michael M. Gunter, professor of political science at Tennessee Technological University and author of three books on Kurdish issues, interviewed him in Damascus on March ,
INTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION
My visit to Syria began by my obtaining a standard single-entry tourist visa to the country, which I did without any political contacts or sponsorship
•
Profile: Abdullah Ocalan
Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), was banished to his island prison 14 years ago, narrowly escaping the gallows.
Greyer and tempered by long isolation, he now braves the scepticism of many Turks, and some of his own fighters, to don the mantle of peacemaker.
Long reviled in much of the Turkish media as a “monster,” Ocalan ordered his fighters on Thursday to withdraw to the mountains of northern Iraq and cease fighting, his words read to hundreds of thousands of Kurds gathered in the regional city of Diyarbakir.
In scenes unthinkable over the past 28 years of conflict, the banned image of the moustachioed fighter, now avowedly peacemaker, was borne on placards through the streets amid a sea of red-yellow-green Kurdish flags. Police were nowhere to be seen.
It was a remarkable transformation from the dazed figure, bundled, handcuffed and blindfolded onto a jet bygd Turkish special forces after his capture in Kenya. Sitting m