BRUSSELS, Oct 8 (AFP) - Turkey's Kurdish activist Leyla Zana is to address the European Parliament next week and finally be honoured for an EU human rights prize awarded in 1995 when she was in jail, officials said Friday.
Zana, who was released in June after a decade behind bars, will be hailed personally nine years after she was awarded the Sakharov prize by the European Union's legislative assembly, which she will address on Thursday.
Parliament President Josep Borrell welcomed the trip. "He's very happy she's coming because ... she received the Sakharov prize a long time ago," said his spokesman Jacques Nancy, adding: "That means that Turkey is making progress."
Three other former Kurdish legislators who were released alongside Zana in June -- Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak -- will accompany her to Brussels.
On Thursday, the four were issued passports that will enable them to travel to Belgium, Dogan told AFP.
Moreover, he said, the Turkish authorities granted them passports that fall under a special category of travel documents, which are reserved for senior public servants and ensure certain privileges.
"We expect no legal obstacle when we leave Turkey," Dogan said.
Zana and a group of fellow Kurdish activists were jailed in 1994 for 15 years on charges of collaborating with separatist Kurdish rebels. The EU prize was handed over to Zana's husband in January 1996.
Her release from jail was a surprise twist in one of the most politically charged cases in EU-hopeful Turkey. The four were seen as prisoners of conscience by the European Union.
The Brussels visit will come a week after the European Commission recommended that the EU start membership negotiations with Turkey, which first started moves towards joining the bloc over 40 years ago.
The commission's views will form the basis for a decision to be taken by EU leaders at a mid-December summit. They are expected also to give a green light, while attaching strict conditions and warning that EU entry is not guaranteed.
Zana, married at 14 to a Kurdish activist who introduced her to politics, became the first Kurdish woman to win a seat in Turkey's parliament in 1991. She immediately drew Ankara's wrath by wearing a headband in the Kurdish colors at the swearing-in ceremony and defiantly vowed in Kurdish to continue the struggle so Kurds and Turks could live together in democracy.