ANKARA, Jan 26 (AFP) - Turkish authorities are making the necessary legal preparations to demand the extradition of a Kurdish rebel leader detained in Germany last week, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said Wednesday.
"Work is under way to secure the extradition to Turkey of that person," Cicek said when asked about Remzi Kartal, deputy chairman of KONGRA-GEL, the new name of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Anatolia news agency reported.
The minister explained that Ankara was preparing the required documents to lodge a formal extradition request and had asked German authorities to keep Kartal in custody in the meantime.
Kartal was arrested in Nuremberg on Saturday on an international warrant issued by Turkey on suspicion of being a member of a terrorist organization.
The PKK, which has waged a separatist war on Ankara, is considered a terrorist group by Turkey as well as the European Union and the United States.
Kartal was among a group of Kurdish members of the Turkish parliament who fled to Europe in 1994 after authorities cracked down on their Democracy Party on charges that it was collaborating with the PKK rebellion.
Four others, including human rights award winner Leyla Zana, ended up in prison and were released only in June, pending a review of their sentences.
Kartal, who was based in Brussels, was in Nuremberg to attend a cultural function when he was detained, according to the Kurdish media.
The PKK took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast in 1984, with the conflict claiming some 37,000 lives since then.
The group called off a five-year unilateral truce on June 1, since when it has been blamed for a series of deadly attacks in the southeast, as well as the bombing of two hotels in Istanbul in August, which claimed two lives.
01/26/2005 08:30 GMT - AFP