The Factors and Underlying Currents that Led to the Arrest of the PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan  

In light of Abdullah Öcalan’s recent message of disarmament and the dissolution of the PKK as an opposition party, and as discussions around the possibility of a deal that involves this jailed Kurdish leader take center stage in Turkish politics, this paper serves as a revisitation of the circumstances that led to the success of the operation from Türkiye and the US's perspectives. It will also highlight some of the causes of the success, the implications that followed, and whether it was successful in the long term. 

The capture of the fugitive and wanted leader of the separatist Kurdish movement, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on February 15^th, 1999, sent shockwaves through various Kurdish communities in the homelands and diaspora. Shocks of similar magnitude but of different implications and consequences were going through some European and Western capitals and their intelligence agencies. 

The act of nabbing the wanted fugitive leader of the PKK was hailed by many capitals, including Washington, D.C., as a victory in the war against global terrorism. That same action was felt as an act of betrayal towards their cause by many Kurds in the four parts of Kurdistan. The success of the intelligence-driven, diplomacy-supported operation was celebrated by Türkiye and its accomplices, namely the US and Kenya, while it resulted in humiliation, followed by many resignations and sackings, among various levels of Greece’s National Intelligence Agency (EYP).  

Background 

On February 15, 1999, a private jet flew from Nairobi Airport with precious cargo consisting of one fugitive and several intelligence officers and one doctor. The fugitive leader of PKK Abdullah Öcalan had been on the run for months after he was forced to leave its movement’s stronghold bases in Syria, under pressure from the Syrian government that was acting on the behest of the Turkish government. Öcalan had been hopping through European countries as well as Russia in an attempt to secure asylum and to avoid being captured by the Turkish government. Political pressure from Ankara, coupled with cautionary messages from DC, made accepting Öcalan in most countries a political adventure worth avoiding. 

Öcalan, through his long and trusting contacts with the government of Greece and members of its intelligence service, ended up in Greece. The controversial and wanted figure that landed in the country that was already in conflict with Türkiye was too hot to handle. Greek authorities didn’t turn in Öcalan, but instead they opted for a plan to assist him in getting to a place in Africa where he could hide and be away from Turkish eyes. While the Greeks thought they had a solid plan, Turkish and US intelligence services were drawing up their plans to piggyback on the Greece operation that was riddled with failures and intelligence malpractices. 

Why Did Öcalan Become Fugitive? 

Abdullah Öcalan, born on April 4, 1948 (76 Years old) in Omerli, Turkey. The de facto leader of PKK is considered a hero by some Kurds, labeled a terrorist by most international intelligence agencies, and an enemy of the state by the state of Türkiye. At the time of his fugitive days, he even had an international arrest warrant from Germany for allegedly ordering terrorist attacks on German soil. 

He aspired to study political science at Ankara University but dropped out after embracing Marxism, voicing left-wing sentiments, and being arrested for organizing student movements. After returning to southern Türkiye the process of advocating for an independent Kurdish state began when, in 1977, he and two of his comrades wrote the blueprint for the PKK and called it The National Road to the Kurdish Revolution. 

In 1979 he was forced to leave Türkiye and flee, along with a group of his comrades, to Syria. There, they began the training of guerrillas and created the core of the PKK's fighting power. In August 1984, the PKK began its armed struggle against the state of Türkiye by attacking a pro-government village in southeastern Türkiye. His reign of the party from 1984 until his capture in 1999 was marred with a large number of deaths within the PKK's own ranks as well as within the ranks of the Turkish military. There are many allegations of killings of civilians, kidnapping of Western tourists, and elimination of his rivals within the party.  

His departure from Türkiye was the start of his fugitive life. He was able to continue running his party from its stronghold bases in Syria until he was asked by the government of Syria to leave. It is widely believed that Syria’s decision to oust Öcalan was under pressure from the international community and from Türkiye specifically; a threat of military invasion was communicated to Damascus. Öcalan, forced to leave, began a secret and dangerous journey in search of a safe refuge for himself, with a handful of his close aides. His journey would take him to Italy, Russia, and Greece. Öcalan attempted to go to the Netherlands but was denied entry at the Rotterdam Airport, as per an official statement from the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dated February 1, 1999. Türkiye had warned all European countries that allowing Öcalan on their soil would be considered an act of war.  

The International Political Climate Pre-Öcalan Arrest 

During the 80s and early 90s of the 20th century, Türkiye was a close ally of the US in the region; it had allowed its NATO bases to be used in bombing Iraq, but the single most problematic issue that affected the bilateral relations between the US and Türkiye was the Kurdish issue. For example, the US's reluctance to sell attack helicopters to Ankara was due to concerns over the potential use of these helicopters against its Kurdish population. As a show of appreciation for Türkiye’s cooperation on the security front, the US State Department consistently labeled Öcalan a terrorist and most likely played a major role in convincing Russia, the Netherlands, and Italy to deny him asylum. US, and probably Israel, were the major sources of intelligence regarding the whereabouts of Öcalan to Turkey. 

Also, the US was playing the role of the champion of anti-terrorism during the 80s and the 90s. The US had clearly considered Öcalan to be the leader of a terrorist organization. The US State Department had also portrayed Athens, since the early eighties, as the base for some of the most dangerous home-grown terrorist groups in Europe. When Öcalan landed in Greece, the CIA communicated to Athens and to the EYP that this was the golden opportunity to prove to the international community that they are no longer soft on terrorism. 

The last component that had shaped the grounds was a terrorism-related event that had taken place only six months earlier. When the Greece EYP decided to take Öcalan to Kenya, instead of handing him over to Turkish authorities, Kenya was considered a very poor choice. There was a heightened presence of the CIA and FBI in Nairobi, only months after the bombing of the US Embassy was carried out by al Qa’ida. Most communications and movements through the airport were intercepted and monitored. The level of cooperation between the Kenyan government and the US intelligence agencies was at its best in order to prevent another terrorism event, regardless of its source. When a Greek private jet landed in Nairobi and the identities of the occupants were not disclosed, the muted alarms of intelligence agencies blared, and focus was placed on the cargo of that private jet. 

The Timeline of the Arrest 

129 Days On The Run  

October 9, 1998: Öcalan is expelled from Syria under threat from Türkiye’s military invasion. He was placed by Hafez Assad’s Syria on a plane to Athens, Greece, accompanied by two Syrian intelligence officers and one female PKK fighter. Subsequently, PKK camps in Syria were closed.  

October 10, 1998: Öcalan is at the VIP lounge at Athen’s Airport when Greece EYP officer Savvas Kalenteridis and MP Badavos locate him sitting in a corner with his mobile phone switched off. Öcalan is told to continue on the Syrian Airlines flight to Stockholm, where the Greeks will help him get asylum. Öcalan refuses. 

October 10, 1998: Upon a request from the PKK's representative in Russia, the Russian Embassy in Athens granted Öcalan a visa to enter Russia.  

October 10, 1998: Öcalan asks that he be accompanied by a Greek intelligence officer. Klanteridis was selected to accompany Öcalan on the trip to Russia. They arrive in Moscow on the same day.  

Öcalan stays in Russia for 33 days.  

Circa November 4, 1998: Öcalan arrives in Italy at the consent of PM D’Alema. Italy fails to convince Germany and France to allow Öcalan to stay in Europe. There was an outstanding arrest warrant for Öcalan from Germany.  

On November 21, Holly Cartner, the Executive Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, wrote to D’Alema that Öcalan should not receive asylum in Italy since he could not receive asylum under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.  

Öcalan Stays in Italy for 66 Days  

January 29, 1999: Öcalan and two aides arrive in Athens, Greece, on a Lear private jet after contacting some of his Greek friends who helped him get back into Greece, violating instructions from the Greek government.  

He is taken to a house in Athens by his friends, where the Greek intelligence find him. They suggest he goes to Libya or Lebanon. Öcalan’s friends in Europe advise him to go to the Netherlands because getting asylum there was easy.  

January 30, 1999: Öcalan was taken to Minsk, Belarus, accompanied by Klanteridis. Öcalan was supposed to take a second flight on a cargo plane from Minsk to Amsterdam. That second plane never arrived at Minsk.  

January 30, 1999: Öcalan, his two lawyers, a Cypriot businessman, and Klanteridis return to Athens on the same plane.  

January 30, 1999: Upon arrival in Athens, the group was told that there were security concerns, and they went to the island of Corfu.  

February 1, 1999: Italian Prime Minister Costas Simiti orders taking Öcalan to Rotterdam, Netherlands, on a private plane. Öcalan hoped to present his personal case and the Kurdish case at the Hague. The flight was not granted permission to land. The Dutch turned his plane away, and it returned to Corfu. 

February 1, 1999: Türkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues a press release warning the Netherlands and other countries of accepting fugitive Öcalan.  

February 1, 2009: Vassilis Papaioannou, Senior Aide to Greece’s FM, contacts the Secretary of the Greek Embassy in Nairobi and tells him that a Falcon plane with an important passenger will arrive the following day.  

February 2, 1999: At 11 am local time, Öcalan, Klanteridis, the Cypriot businessman, a Kurdish man with Swedish nationality, and a Kurdish woman with German nationality arrive in Nairobi, Kenya. They are transported to the official residence of the Greek Ambassador.  

February 3, 1999: Vassilis Papaioannou calls the Greek Embassy and instructs them that all communications on this issue will be through telephone lines. Klanteridis tells the Greek Foreign Ministry that his instructions are to take Öcalan to South Africa.  

February 4, 1999: The US Embassy in Nairobi calls the Greek Embassy and asks for a meeting with the Ambassador on the 5^th. The meeting never takes place.  

February 4, 1999: The Greek Ambassador Costoulas is summoned to the Kenyan Foreign Ministry and is questioned about the Falcon and the passengers.  

February 4, 1999: Klanteridis attempts to travel to South Africa to make arrangements for Öcalan’s arrival and his asylum application. He is arrested by Kenyan authorities at the Nairobi airport. Later, he returns to the ambassador’s residence.  

February 5, 1999: Kenyans intensify pressure on Ambassador Costoulas. He communicates with the Foreign Ministry in Athens and is instructed to ignore the Kenyan pressure. 

February 5, 1999: Later in the day, Greek FM contacts Ambassador Costoulas and tells him to pressure Öcalan into leaving the compound.  

February 5, 1999: Even later in the day, Greek FM tells Ambassador Costoulas to move Öcalan to the UN office in Nairobi and emphasizes that Öcalan must leave the compound.  

Negotiations continue from February 5 to February 12. During which time one of the Kurdish companions of Öcalan threatens to kill himself if Öcalan is removed from the compound.  

February 12, 1999: Chief of Greece Intelligence Haralambos Stavrakakis calls Klanteridis at the Embassy in Kenya and begs him to kick Öcalan out of the compound. Klanteridis refuses to obey the orders.  

February 13, 1999: Öcalan’s Greek lawyer arrives in Nairobi. Öcalan asks if he could apply for asylum with Greece based on international laws. The lawyer doesn’t think it is possible because of the length of time it will take to process his claim of asylum.  

February 13, 1999: Klanteridis receives a call from four ministers in Athens. They plead with him to kick Öcalan out of the compound. Klanteridis refuses again. They threaten him with legal action upon his return to Greece.  

February 14, 1999: A four-member security team arrives in Nairobi from Athens. After a short detention at the airport, they arrive at the ambassador’s compound.  

February 14, 1999: At around 1 PM, the security team arrives at the compound. They are to remove Öcalan from the compound, take him to a hotel in Nairobi, give him some money, and leave him. One of the Kurdish companions of Öcalan threatens to kill himself with a gun that he had hidden in his possession. This sends panic through the compound.  

February 15, 1999: Ambassador Costoulas is summoned to the Kenyan Foreign Ministry. He refuses to go. A short while later, Kenyan government vehicles arrive at the compound and force the Ambassador to go with them to the ministry. At the Ministry, photos of Öcalan walking around the Ambassador's compound were shown to the Ambassador.  

February 15, 1999: The Kenyan Foreign Ministry makes the offer of allowing Öcalan to fly to a European destination of his choice. They give the Ambassador a window of time that expired at 7 PM that day. They threaten that if Öcalan refuses to leave the compound, “something might happen” that night.  

February 15, 1999: Around 4 PM local time in Kampala, a five-member Turkish team—five commandos, a doctor, and a pilot—left for Nairobi. They were part of Operation Safari selected to apprehend Öcalan.  

February 15, 1999: Ambassador Costoulas returns to his compound and presents the offer to Öcalan and his team. Öcalan agrees after realizing the headache and pressure he had brought on to “my Greek friends,” as he explains.  

The agreement is communicated to the Kenyan authorities. Kenyans insisted that Öcalan must be transported to the airport in Kenyan government vehicles. Öcalan was placed in one vehicle alone and the rest of the team in separate vehicles.  

On the way to the airport, Öcalan’s vehicle speeds up and separates from the convoy. By the time the rest of the vehicles arrive at the airport, Öcalan was already boarded to the jet that had the team of Turkish Intelligence service members. He is greeted by members of Operation Safari and is told “you have reached the end; you are going home.”  

February 15, 1999 (Evening): In Ankara, Turkish PM Bulent Ecevit ends a meeting with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to oversee the final stages of Operation Safari. The Falcon 900B Turkish jet is initially denied landing at Ankara airport since airport traffic control was not notified of the flight due to the highest level of secrecy surrounding the operation.  

February 16, 1999: Photos of disheveled Öcalan surface on Turkish newspapers and media outlets. PM Ecevit broke the news of Öcalan’s arrest to the world. The operation is considered a national triumph for Turkey and its intelligence service.  

Operational Failures 

The failure of the operation from the Greek point of view and its success from the Turkish perspective are attributed to several factors, some of which were not under the control of the Greek authorities. Öcalan personally is believed to have caused some of the leaks regarding his whereabouts.  

On the side of Greeks, operational security measures were not taken by the EYP. Lack of proper plan and objective contributed to the vagueness of the mission, leading to unnecessary communications and movement of individuals. The lack of a proper set of code words and names for the operation made detection easy. Also, the lack of chain of commands at the Foreign Ministry created doubts in the EYP field operator. The fact that an aide or a secretary at the FM issued instructions to Klanteridis made the latter suspicious whether higher ups in his own chain of command were read into the decisions. And hence he refused to follow orders, and the chain of command broke down.  

Öcalan, the top man of a left-wing party hardened by years of leading a guerrilla war, was not used to being told what to do. When he was instructed to stay off of his mobile phone, he dismissed the instructions and called friends in Europe and elsewhere. He was also asked by Greek Embassy staff in Nairobi to stay indoors, yet he went out for walks on the premises several times. Both actions were factors in detecting and confirming his whereabouts.  

Greece At the Crossroads  

Greece found itself entangled in a turbulent situation due to the decisions it made. The Greeks considered Kurds the underdog warriors who were fighting for their rights. The image of Öcalan was a reminiscence of their ancestors, a tough warrior with a revolutionary stance against the state of Türkiye, a state also connected with the Greek past. The sense of honor among the Greeks prevented them from rejecting Öcalan at first; however, they slowly recognized the high price they had to pay if they extended his stay.  

What worked in Öcalan’s favor was the strength and prominence of left-wing Greek parties who had been supportive of PKK and Öcalan because of their effectivity in killing Turks and Maoists.  

Some of the decisions made by the Greek officials were based on personal attachments and commitments. For example, Klanteridis himself came from a family of nationalists who respected Greek history and heritage. As such, Klanteridis was adamant about protecting the name of Greece and not allowing it to be associated with acts of selling out a friend at times of need.  

At the same time, Greece was struggling with finding its identity within the international community. On the one hand, the US was indicating that Greece’s long-standing reputation of being a harbor for international terrorists could be corrected if Greece cooperated by handing over Öcalan. Greece, with a suffering economy, was also trying to avoid an armed conflict with Türkiye. It also needed to avoid conflict with Europe’s powerhouse, Germany.  

To date, there has been no proof of Greece’s direct involvement in the plot to hand over Öcalan to the Turks. However, it is possible that they had indications that suggest the Greek’s realized what the end game was going to be after their team with Öcalan was stuck in Nairobi, Kenya. One of the signs of this realization is the evacuation of a Kurdish refugee tent city in Athens by Greek authorities only hours before Öcalan’s arrest. This could be construed as a precautionary measure to avoid an eruption of violence among the Kurds upon the announcement of Öcalan’s capture by Türkiye. 

Epilogue  

After the arrest, Öcalan was tried by a Turkish state security court. He was sentenced to death on June 29, 1999. However, his death sentence was commuted in 2002, and he has been serving a life sentence in solitary confinement on the prison island of Imrali in the sea of Marmamara.  

Several factors led to Türkiye’s decision not to carry out the death sentence.  

Türkiye had applied to become a member of the EU, and one of the conditions of becoming a member is the fulfillment of the Copenhagen Criteria, which required the successful achievement of “stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for, and promotion of minorities.” Türkiye wanted to avoid any further criticism of its poor human rights record.  

Also, Türkiye had observed a de facto moratorium on capital punishment since 1984. And Bulent Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party supported legislation that would have abolished the death penalty.  

The last factor was that Türkiye did not want to make a martyr out of Öcalan.  

As far as PKK was concerned, there were some speculations that there would be some escalation in its activities after the arrest, but many speculated that PKK’s activities would die down, and some analysts went even further and predicted the dissolution and disappearance of the party altogether. 

Within the party itself, there was a discussion over who would take over as the head of the party. The competitors included Abdulla Öcalan’s own brother, Osman Öcalan. Osman, who was known for his close ties to Iran, was challenged by Syrian-backed commanders Murat Karayilian and Cemil Bayik.  

In 2004, the PKK resumed its attacks against the Turkish state.  

In 2009, secret peace talks began between Turkish officials and PKK leaders. 

In 2011, the talks collapsed.  

In 2012, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkish officials had begun negotiating with imprisoned Abdulla Öcalan.  

In 2013, Öcalan called for a ceasefire, and PKK guerrillas withdrew from Türkiye.  

In 2015, the ceasefire was ended as peace talks were not successful.  

On February 27, 2025, Öcalan asked the PKK to disarm and hold a congress to dissolve the party. He did this through a written message delivered by selected members of the Turkish DEM Party who had been working as interlocutors between Öcalan in Imrali prison and the Turkish government.  

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