Kurd Mps Freed As Turkey Lifts Broadcast Ban

Nobel peace prize nominee Leyla Zana, who has championed Kurdish causes in Turkey from a prison cell for the past 10 years, was released yesterday with three fellow former MPs, in an unexpected move aimed at supporting Turkey's drive to join the EU.

Jubilant crowds rushed to Ulucanlar prison in Ankara to see their release within hours of a court issuing the ruling pending their appeal.

"At this point, this country has entered a new era, it has turned a new page," Ms Zana said. "My wish is for everyone to set aside disputes and solve our problems hand-in-hand."

At the same time, Turkey has allowed Kurdish language programmes to be broadcast for the first time, and the European court of human rights has begun examining an appeal by the Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Throughout the Kurdish-populated south-east, people tuned into the programmes.

"Turkey's 80-year ban on the Kurds is over today," the pro-Kurdish former MP Sirri Sakik told Reuters as supporters gathered outside the prison. "It shows Turkey recognises the Kurdish reality."

Kurds make up a fifth of Turkey's 72 million people. But, after a long and bitter history of hatred, the authorities once refused to even recognise them, preferring to call them "mountain Turks".

More than anyone else, Ms Zana, 43, came to symbolise their struggle. The four MPs were jailed for 15 years in 1994 after being convicted of collaborating with the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which was then using terror methods to fight for autonomy in the south-east. Though the four are to be retried next month, western observers said their release was bound to please the EU.

The Islamic-rooted government party, Justice and Development, has recently stepped up its reform programme, passing EU-directed policies at breakneck speed before the union decides in December whether to open membership talks with Ankara.

"This is most unexpected, most significant," an EU diplomat said in Ankara. "After all these years of being refused bail, they're suddenly set free with absolutely no warning."

The justice minister, Cemil Cicek, admitted that their release was connected to the wish to join the EU. "This was the last bargaining chip in the hands of those who were seeking excuses [for a refusal] in Turkey's EU bid," he said.

The court of human rights had harshly criticised the MPs' imprisonment.

Ms Zana was charged twice: speaking Kurdish when taking the oath in parliament; and wearing a headband for the ceremony in the Kurdish colours, yellow, green and red.

To international dismay, their convictions were upheld by a state security court in April after a retrial was ordered by the European court.