On 21 March, imprisoned Turkish Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan re-dedicated himself to the year-old peace process (see PN 2566, 2564-65). In a Kurdish new year (Newroz) message, Ocalan said: ‘We were not afraid of resisting [with violence]; we won’t be afraid of making peace.’
Ocalan’s Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) withdrew many of its fighters from Turkish territory last year. The year-long ceasefire would end unless the government carried out significant reforms within a fortnight of local elections at the end of March, a senior PKK commander, warned on 17 March.
On 18 March, the European court of human rights condemned Turkey’s ‘inhuman’ treatment of Ocalan during the first 10 years of his imprisonment.