Turkey moving PKK leader Ocalan to new prison

ISTANBUL, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan will be
moved to a new prison this week, where he will be joined by other inmates
for the first time, a step coinciding with a government bid to boost
minority Kurdish rights.

Broadcaster CNN Turk said Ocalan would be joined in his island jail by eight
members of his Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group, in line with
human rights reforms undertaken by Ankara as it looks to secure European
Union membership.

Justice Ministry officials were not immediately available to comment.

Ocalan has been held in solitary confinement on the island of Imrali off
Istanbul since 1999, when he was convicted of treason for leading an armed
insurgency with the aim of creating a separate Kurdish state.

The conflict has claimed more than 40,000 lives since it was launched in
1984, but the violence has dwindled in the last couple of years after
Turkish air raids on the PKK's bases in northern Iraq and due to increased
cooperation between Turkey, Iraq and the United States against the
militants.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government has been working in recent months
on a plan to boost the rights of Turkey's 12 million Kurds -- a sixth of the
population -- who have long complained of discrimination.

The process is intended to end the Kurdish conflict. In line with that, a
small group of PKK militants returned from Iraq to Turkey last month and
were released -- in celebratory scenes that caused widespread nationalist
anger.

In the new prison, built at a cost of $5 million, Ocalan will remain alone
in his cell but will be able to meet other prisoners during exercise breaks,
CNN Turk reported.

The prison walls will be adorned with the patriotic sayings of modern
Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, whose bust will also be displayed
in the jail. (Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Kevin
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=kevin.liffey&>
Liffey)