Italians Indicate They May Shelter Rebel Kurd Despite Turkish Anger

As NATO allies Turkey and Italy lurched toward a diplomatic crisis, Italian leaders signaled Tuesday that they will consider an appeal for political asylum by a detained Kurdish rebel leader despite Turkish demands for his extradition.

In a speech to his country’s Parliament, Italian Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema said that if Abdullah Ocalan abides by pledges to abandon terrorism for good, D’Alema’s government will weigh the appeal for asylum lodged Saturday, two days after Ocalan’s arrest in Rome.

“This . . . should not be interpreted as a hostile act against Turkey but as an act of respect for our own laws, our history, our values,” D’Alema said.

Turkish President Suleyman Demirel, en route to Vienna on Tuesday, responded angrily, saying, “[Italy] would not, could not, give shelter to a monster who has caused the loss of 30,000 people.”

Anti-Italian sentiment has been running high in this predominantly Muslim country since Ocalan, the leader of the outlawed separatist group known as the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, was detained by Italian police late Thursday after stepping off a plane from Moscow.

Ocalan was traveling on a forged Turkish passport and was put in a military hospital in Rome after reportedly complaining about heart trouble. On Tuesday, he remained in the Celio hospital, where he was interrogated by Italian police for the first time.

In a typical commentary, Turkey’s mass-circulation daily Hurriyet charged Tuesday, “The Italians eat so much pasta and drink so much wine that it has damaged their brains.”

Ocalan, who is on Interpol’s most-wanted list for his alleged role in the killings of Kurdish rebel deserters in Germany, has been leading the PKK’s bloody campaign against the Turkish government for an independent Kurdish state since 1984. The PKK is on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations because of its brutal tactics.

But to his supporters, Ocalan is a freedom fighter who has forced the Turkish government to acknowledge the country’s estimated 12 million Kurds as a separate ethnic group.

Also Tuesday, a PKK guerrilla strapped with explosives killed herself and wounded four Turkish officers in southeastern Turkey in a suicide attack, apparently as a protest against Ocalan’s detention.

In Moscow, meanwhile, two Kurdish men doused themselves with gasoline and set themselves on fire in what they termed a protest action against “the anti-Ocalan pact formed by imperialist America, Israel and fascist Turkey.” One of the men was reported in critical condition.

And in Rome, about 2,000 Kurds from across Europe gathered at the city’s central Piazza Venezia to back Ocalan’s demand for political asylum.

Turkey’s leading business lobbies are threatening to suspend trade ties with Italy if it fails to hand over Ocalan. And Turkish officials say Italian companies will probably be dropped from lucrative defense contracts worth billions of dollars should Rome persist in its stance. With sales totaling more than $3 billion so far this year, Italy ranks as the world’s second-largest exporter to Turkey.

The Turkish government is debating draft legislation to outlaw the death penalty in a last-ditch attempt to secure Ocalan’s extradition. Under Italian law, the government is not allowed to extradite anyone who risks capital punishment in his or her own country.

But a growing number of Turkish officials and commentators claim that Ocalan’s trip to Italy was planned with the Italian authorities and is part of a broader European strategy to pressure Ankara into abandoning its military campaign against the separatists in favor of political dialogue with the Kurds.

“The Kurdish problem is rapidly being internationalized,” said Hashim Hashimi, an ethnic Kurdish member of the Turkish parliament. “If the PKK lays down its weapons and shifts its battle to the arena of international diplomacy, Turkey will be robbed of its argument that it is fighting a terrorist movement.”

Some observers argue that Turkey can counter Ocalan’s moves only by ending sustained government pressure against nonviolent Kurdish political groups in Turkey. Immediate steps to be taken by the government, according to Hasan Cemal, chief columnist for the liberal daily Milliyet, should include lifting current bans on education and broadcasting in the Kurdish language and preparing a special investment package for the mainly Kurdish southeastern provinces.