The Italian government's dispute with Turkey over the arrest in Rome last week of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader, Mr Abdullah Ocalan, continued yesterday with an intervention by the European Parliament, which expressed its solidarity with Italy.
The leader of the European Parliament's majority Socialist group, Ms Pauline Green, denounced as "totally unacceptable and disgraceful" the Turkish prime minister's suggestion that Italy was an accomplice of terrorism because it refused to extradite the rebel leader to Ankara.
Commenting in Ankara on the Turkish government's request that the PKK leader be extradited to Turkey and that Italy should deny him political asylum, the Turkish Defence Minister, Mr Ismet Szegin, said that the problem needed to be addressed with "a cool head".
Asked to comment on the sympathy of elements in the current centre-left Italian government headed by Mr Massimo D'Alema for the Kurdish cause, Mr Szegin said: "I hope that when they begin to understand the question better, they will become more realistic."
Mr Szegin also welcomed unconfirmed reports that Mr D'Alema intended to travel to Istanbul next Wednesday to watch Juventus play a Champions League tie against Turkish side Galatasaray.
Earlier, European Parliament group leaders had condemned the tone of statements made on Wednesday by the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Mesut Yilmaz, when he said that Italy would be an accomplice to terrorism and murder if it did not extradite the PKK leader. Turkey wants to try Mr Ocalan on murder and terrorism charges related to his 14-year armed campaign for Kurdish autonomy in the mainly Kurdish south-east of Turkey.
Although no decision about Mr Ocalan's future has yet been made, Mr D'Alema on Wednesday angrily rejected Turkey's "unjustifiable intimidation", adding that the Ocalan case would be judged according to Italian law and judicial procedures.
The possibility that the PKK leader might be extradited continues to look extremely remote because of Italy's constitutional ban on extradition to a country (such as Turkey) with the death penalty on its statute book.
As more than 2,000 Kurds continued yesterday to stage a demonstration in Rome in favour of political asylum for the man they consider their leader, the Italian Justice Minister, Mr Oliviero Diliberto, confirmed Mr Ocalan's arrest. He called on Rome's Court of Appeals to substitute his current prison detention in a military hospital at Palestrina with a less severe form of arrest.
Meanwhile, there was contrasting news yesterday of two Kurdish sympathisers who set fire to themselves in protest at Mr Ocalan's arrest. Mr Mehmet Aydin (25) died in a prison hospital in Ankara yesterday as a result of his self-inflicted injuries while Mr Zulkuf Yilmaz (30) was pronounced "in no serious danger" by Rome's Sant'Eugenio hospital following his self-immolation at a Kurdish demonstration in Rome two days ago.
Steve Bryant adds from Ankara:
Mr Yilmaz yesterday rejected the Italian offer of a ministerial meeting to defuse the row with Rome. Mr Yilmaz's comments betrayed growing Turkish fury that it might not be able to secure the extradition from Italy of its most wanted man.
The state-run Anatolian news agency quoted Mr Yilmaz as saying that Mr D'Alema had suggested meeting before the Juventus-Galatasaray soccer match in Istanbul.
"I said `If he wants to talk, let him come to Ankara'," it quoted Mr Yilmaz as saying.
Protests have erupted in Ankara and Istanbul, while a vitriolic Turkish press has accused Italy of sheltering Mr Ocalan.
Meanwhile, the Anatolian news agency said a Turkish soldier had died of wounds he sustained when a Kurdish militant blew herself up near a police station earlier this week in support of Mr Ocalan.
The wave of Turkish fury has been fuelled by strident local media. "The flood of condemnation swells wave by wave," the Sabah daily said. "The monster responsible for the death of 30,000 must be extradited."
While the temperature of the diplomatic battle with Italy rises, the Ankara government faces its own struggle for survival. Parliament decided yesterday to hold a censure vote against Mr Yilmaz next week. Thousands of people, among them relatives of the "martyrs", servicemen killed by the PKK, gathered outside Italy's diplomatic missions in Ankara and Istanbul. The US has backed Turkey's extradition bid.
Six Turkish F-16 jets landed at an airbase in north Cyprus yesterday in a display of Ankara's military commitment to the breakaway enclave where it keeps 30,000 troops.
The arrival of the planes was part of six days of military exercises Turkey is holding with Turkish Cyprus in and around the divided island.