A senior Kurdish guerrilla leader has said his brother, the jailed rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan, is seriously ill in his death-row cell and warned Turkey to treat the condition rapidly.
Mr Osman Ocalan told the Europe-based Kurdish satellite channel, Medya TV, that the health of his brother - the sole inmate on a remote island jail - was deteriorating fast.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader, Abdullah Ocalan, is awaiting a European Court of Human Rights appeal verdict against his death sentence handed down for treason and for leading a 15-year armed campaign for Kurdish home rule.
Some 30,000 rebels, soldiers and civilians were killed in the conflict.
"For two months the condition of PKK chairman Abdullah Ocalan has been rapidly deteriorating," said his brother. "He has great difficulty breathing, he almost suffocates in his sleep. His eyes are bloodshot and he has lost the senses of taste and smell."
Ocalan's lawyers, who regularly visit the rebel chief, blamed the illness on damp, stuffy conditions at the prison.
"He is only let out to exercise two hours a day and the rest of the time he is kept in a cell without any windows," his lawyer, Mr Irfan Dundar, said. Abdullah Ocalan ordered his guerrilla forces to end their armed struggle and transform themselves into a peaceful democratic force after his capture last year. The fighting has died down between troops and the rebels since then.
But the Turkish government argues that the PKK rebels still have their arms and that the move is a ploy to save Ocalan from the gallows.
"Turkey is not hanging him, but wants to execute him in a different way. We will not let this happen. If something is not done, there will be serious agitation," said Mr Osman Ocalan.
The younger Ocalan is one of the most influential members of a nine-person "leadership council" which has run the rebel organisation since his elder brother's capture last year.
The Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Politika said yesterday that renegade rebel field commander Mr Hamili Yildirim, who had rejected Ocalan's peace call and vowed to carry on fighting, had now rejoined the PKK's ranks.
Two members of a state-paid anti-rebel militia died yesterday and six others were wounded when two groups of the force clashed in the southeastern province of Batman.
Security officials said the fighting was sparked by a quarrel between two rival groups in the militia. They said 30 other militia members were taken into custody over the incident.
Turkey has armed and employed some 60,000 Kurdish villagers and tribesmen as an auxiliary force to help in its fight against the PKK.
But the future of the "village guard" militia has come under question after the eight-month lull in fighting between troops and the PKK.
Critics say many village guards use their guns for criminal activities and intimidation while the system has reinforced the power of the semi-feudal local landowners who are opposed to the formally Marxist-Leninist PKK.
Turkey's centre-left Prime Minister, Mr Bulent Ecevit, has replaced two cabinet ministers who lost their posts after opposing the coalition's favoured candidates for president, government sources said yesterday.
Housing minister Mr Sadi Somuncuoglu, who was sacked for running against newly elected President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, has been replaced by Mr Faruk Bal from the coalition's same far-right Nationalist Movement Party, the Prime Minister's office said.
It added that Mr Rustu Kazim Yucelen from the centre-right Motherland Party would succeed former human rights minister Mr Mehmet Ali Irtemcelik, who resigned in protest at the "unacceptable" pressure Mr Ecevit put on MPs in April in his failed effort to secure a second term for outgoing president Mr Suleyman Demirel.