The Kurdish parliament-in-exile called yesterday for the establishment of an international court to try the Kurdish guerrilla leader Mr Abdullah Ocalan, jailed in Turkey after his capture in Africa on Monday.
"We want the West to create an international court to deal with Mr Ocalan," Mr Zuber Aydar, a senior member of the parliament, told a news conference in Brussels.
"Turkish courts are not independent," he said, adding that Ankara had refused entry to Western lawyers prepared to defend the leader of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Mr Aydar, a former Kurdish member of the Turkish parliament now living abroad, said the Kurds wanted the West to call an international conference to resolve the conflict pitting Kurdish separatists against Ankara since 1984.
He noted that the major powers were sponsoring a peace conference between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Mr Aydar said European countries who had refused to grant Mr Ocalan political asylum and those states he alleged were behind the rebel leader's capture in Kenya - the United States, Israel, Greece and Kenya - were now responsible for his safety.
He said the Kurdish struggle for autonomy from Ankara would not end with Mr Ocalan's imprisonment, since the PKK Congress would choose a replacement leader.
"Of course there will be someone to take his place but that does not mean his role is over. He could play a role like Mr Mandela," he said, referring to the South African President, who as a political prisoner continued to play a key part in the African National Congress.
Mr Aydar said the parliament-in-exile had urged Kurds, whose protests across Europe at Mr Ocalan's return to Turkey have included self-immolation and hostage-taking, to respect the law.
He demanded that the Israeli security guards who killed three Kurds and wounded at least 16 others trying to storm the Israeli consulate in Berlin on Wednesday be brought to trial.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, said the guards acted in self-defence. But Mr Aydar said the group, which included children, was unarmed.
Mr Nebil Hasan, another member of the parliament-in-exile, said Turkey's attempt to demoralise Kurds by showing television footage of Mr Ocalan handcuffed and blindfolded had backfired. "This has just made the Kurds more determined," he said.