Kurdish demonstrators clashed on Sunday with police forces in Istanbul, following their call to release the Kurdish PKK leader, ‘Abdallah Ocalan, reported AFP.
The estimated 100 demonstrators shouted slogans in support of Ocalan and threw stones at the police. The police, in return, fired tear gas grenades and plastic bullets against the protesters. According to reports there were no casualties.
Not far from the site of the demonstration, on the eastern bank of the Bosphorus Strait, pro-PKK demonstrators torched a city bus with a petrol bomb, slightly injuring its driver, the Anatolia news agency reported.
After years of searching, the Turkish authorities managed to get their hands on the Kurdish leader in 1999. Ocalan was sentenced to death, but following European pressure, Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2002.
Since Ocalan’s capture, the volume of PKK activity has drastically declined. In June 2004, however, the PKK cancelled its cease-fire declaration dating from 1999. According to official government figures, since 2004 some 1,000 members of PKK have infiltrated to Turkey from Northern Iraq where PKK has allegedly set up its base with about 3,000 militants. Since then, PKK violence has gradually re-emerged in Turkey, with nearly 200 soldiers and civilians killed over the past year, according to the Turkish news agency AKI.