ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Italy’s Bologna municipality on Monday granted an honorary citizenship to jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, which was received by his nephew Omer Ocalan.
“Today, we are proud and honored to receive the honorary citizenship presented to Mr. Abdullah Ocalan in Bologna, Italy. On behalf of Mr. Ocalan and the Kurdish people, we extend our gratitude for this honor and hope that this award will lead to peace, democracy, and freedom,” Omer told reporters in Bologna after receiving the certificate from the city’s Deputy Mayor Emily Clancy.
"I thank the Council for this choice: I believe that Bologna, in conferring this honorary citizenship, reaffirms in some way its own history and values,” Clancy said, according to Italian newspaper Il Resto del Carlino.
Omer Ocalan is a member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), which has been involved in efforts to revive peace talks between Ankara and the PKK. He visited his uncle on Imrali Island last October and again earlier this month following Eid al-Fitr.
In a historic message delivered by the DEM Party in late February, Abdullah Ocalan called on the PKK to convene a congress, lay down arms, and dissolve itself while integrating “with the state and society.”
Last week, a DEM Party delegation met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a rare sit-down seen as a potential breakthrough in the long-stalled peace process.
Abdullah Ocalan was arrested in Italy in 1998 after fleeing Syria, where he had led the PKK’s operations during the 1980s. After being expelled from Syria, he sought refuge in several European countries, eventually arriving in Italy where he applied for political asylum.
At the time, Italy’s Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema refused to extradite Ocalan to Turkey, citing national laws that prohibit the transfer of suspects to countries where they could face the death penalty, before it had been outlawed in the country. Ocalan later left Italy and was captured in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1999 by Turkish intelligence. Since then, he has been held in isolation on Imrali Island in the Sea of Marmara, south of Istanbul.
Founded in 1978, the PKK initially demanded an independent Kurdistan but now calls for autonomy. It is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey.
