On November 25, the Court of Appeal confirmed Ocalan's...

On November 25, the Court of Appeal confirmed Ocalan's death sentence. The EU High Representative for CFSP, Javier Solana, recalling the importance that European countries attach to the abolition of the death penalty, declared, after confirmation of the death sentence on Ocalan, that it would be difficult and perhaps impossible for Turkey to join the European Union if it upholds the death sentence. EP President Nicole Fontaine wrote to the President of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Yildirim Akbulut calling on him to ensure that his institution does not call for execution to be carried out. She recalled that Turkey has "observed a de facto moratorium on executions for the last 15 years and that the 47 cases of individuals who have been condemned to death have not been put to the vote in the assembly by the Parliamentary committee on justice." EU Commissioner Guenter Verheugen recalled that the EU expected all candidate countries to abolish the death penalty. Finnish Liberal Gunnar Jansson, who represented the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe during Ocalan's trial, stressed that the procedure before the Court of Appeal was respectful of the procedural rights of the defense but that the death penalty remains unacceptable because it is contrary to the standards of the Council of Europe. Jansson recalled that the Turkish authorities have promised that the Kurd leader would not be executed until the European Court of Human Rights had ruled in this affair.