Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, sentenced to...

Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, sentenced to death in 1999, praised Turkey's abolition of capital punishment as the most important decision in its modern history, in an interview.
"It means the end to a 5,000-year-old tradition in this region of the world - that political enemies must be physically eliminated," Ocalan told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, also appealing to Turks and Kurds to live as brothers. The abolition of the death penalty is "the most important decision in the 80 years of the Turkish republic," he said.
"I welcome Turkey's decision as it will strengthen friendship as well as ties between peoples and cultures," he said, adding that the abolition would usher in a policy no longer based "on a frontal clash, but a modern policy based on compromises and accords among parties".