ISTANBUL, Feb 15 (AFP)  Police in Istanbul stepped up security Thursday to head off
 any Kurd protests to mark the second anniversary of the capture of their rebel leader Abdullah
 Ocalan, the city's police chief said.

 Kurdish militants based in Europe have sent messages to fellow activists in Turkey calling for
 'Intifada-style demonstrations' to mark the anniversary, said Kazim Abanoz, leader of the
 separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Anatolia news agency reported.

 Intifada is the name given to the uprising of Palestinians against Israel in occupied territories.

 "All leave for police officers has been suspended and we will not allow any provocations," said
 Abanoz. Istanbul, with more than six million inhabitants, is Turkey's biggest city.

 He said the messages from Europe called on the Kurds to form small groups to burn tires and
 shout slogans in order "to keep the issue of Ocalan's capture alive."

 The PKK said in a statement that "our people should express their reactions within the
 framework of democratic rules," the pro-Kurdish daily Ozgur Politika said in its Internet edition.

 Ocalan was seized by Turkish agents in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on February 15, 1999 after
 leaving the Greek embassy where he sheltered for several days.

 The operation ended a month-long pursuit of the rebel leader who fled successively to Russia,
 Italy and Greece after Syria expelled him from his long-standing safe haven in Damscus in
 October 1998 in the face of Turkish threats of military action.

 In June 1999, Ocalan was sentenced to death for treason and separatism but his execution has
 been suspended pending a European Court of Human Rights ruling on his complaints of rights
 violations against Turkey.

 Since his capture Ocalan, imprisoned in the island of Imrali, has called on his militants to lay
 down their arms and seek a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict.

 The PKK adopted his appeal in September 1999 and said the rebels would withdraw from
 Turkish territory.

 Since then fighting in the area has subsided and several thousand rebels have moved to the
 north of neighboring Iraq.

 But Turkey's powerful military has played down the peace bid as a ploy, saying that the rebels
 should either surrender or face the army.

 The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some 36,500 lives since 1984 when the rebels took
 up arms for self-rule in southeast Turkey.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com