February 19, 1999

3 Greek Officials Removed Over Rebel Kurd's Capture

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

THENS, Greece -- Seeking to contain a growing scandal over Greece's role in the capture of a
Kurdish rebel leader, Prime Minister Costas Simitis has replaced his foreign minister and two other
Cabinet members.

George Papandreou, son of Greece's former prime minister, Andreas Papandreou, who died in 1996, will
replace Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos, who has been assigned most of the blame in the
government for what is being called "the fiasco" here.

On Thursday, government officials gave their explanation of how Greece had come to secretly harbor the
Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, and then was unable to protect him from Turkish security forces.

A deputy foreign minister known as mild-mannered and moderate, Papandreou did not hide his dismay
over the government's bungled diplomacy. "By whatever mistakes, Greece has partial responsibility for
turning Ocalan over to Turkey," he said. "There is an obvious feeling of humiliation in public opinion that
has to be recognized."

The arrest of Ocalan, who was under Greek protection in Nairobi until he was seized by Turkish agents,
was devastating to most Greeks, who sympathize with the Kurdish cause or at least share the Kurds'
animosity for the Greeks' historic enemies, the Turks.

On Thursday, 10,000 people demonstrated here in support of Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party and
against the Greek government's actions, and Greek television repeatedly showed images of Ocalan being
blindfolded by his Turkish captors.

Criticism of what the government did -- or failed to do -- is unlikely to subside easily. The Ocalan affair
could worsen already tense relations between Greece and Turkey. And its repercussions at home will
certainly not help Simitis' contested effort to trim Greece's economy and qualify for membership in the
European Union's single currency by 2001.

Simitis, whose popularity was already lagging, has said little since Ocalan was taken to Turkey. As
departing government officials gave scattered details Thursday of how Greece had become saddled with
Ocalan, offering him secret support while frantically seeking to get rid of him, a poignant but not exactly
flattering image of Greek diplomacy emerged.

After Ocalan's capture on Monday, enraged Kurdish protesters occupied Greek diplomatic posts all over
the world to protest what they initially viewed as Greece's betrayal of the Kurdish leader.

The government's muddled explanation -- that it had sought a safe haven for Ocalan, but was duped by
Ocalan, the Kenyan government and the Turks -- was just as hurtful to Greek national pride.

Interior Minister Alekos Papadopoulos and Public Order Minister Philippos Petsalnikos were replaced by
Vasso Papandreou -- no relation to the new foreign minister -- and Michalis Chrysohoidis.

The departing foreign minister, Pangalos, told reporters at a farewell news conference that Ocalan had
twice secretly entered Greece after he was expelled from Italy at the end of January. The first visit, when
he arrived from Russia, was unannounced and unwelcome, according to Pangalos.

A retired Greek admiral, Andonis Naxakis, a member of a group of hard-line conservatives who favor
Kurdish self-rule in Turkey, said he had invited Ocalan to Greece and spirited him in on a private plane.
Ocalan's supporters misled Greek airport officials by saying the Kurdish leader was a Russian official,
government officials said.

"The first time, he entered Greece without anyone knowing," Pangalos said. "I will tell you frankly, as the
prime minister has said, we did not want Ocalan in Greece."

Ocalan was in fact a greater diplomatic danger to Greece than to any of the other European countries that
shunned him. While Greeks, and particularly the Socialist government of Simitis, embraced the Kurdish
cause, any overt sign of real support to Ocalan would have come close to a declaration of war with
Turkey.

Greece has long pleaded with the European Union to take up the Kurdish cause and help Greece out of its
quandary. Among government officials, there was deep bitterness about what they saw as Europe's lack
of courage.

Naxakis had alerted the government to Ocalan's presence, and government officials said Thursday that
Greek security forces escorted him to a plane and began searching for a country willing to take him.

After he was denied entry into Rotterdam, Netherlands, then Minsk, Belarus, his plane refueled on the
Greek island of Corfu, and he was then sent to the Greek Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, for 12 days while
Greece searched for another destination in Africa. At the time, Greece denied that it was giving Ocalan
refuge.

Ocalan's capture, according to Pangalos, was his own fault. The former prime minister said that foreign
intelligence services picked up his trail by tracking Ocalan's mobile phone by satellite. "He started talking to
the whole world," Pangalos said. "Big secret services have satellites recording all mobile phones."

Pangalos said Ocalan refused to move to another, less detectable area of Kenya and instead made his own
arrangements with Kenyan authorities to go to the airport. En route, Ocalan's car vanished from the
Kenyan government convoy, snatched by Turkish security forces.

Many Greeks expressed skepticism about the government's explanation.

"To me it's as obvious as the sun: Greece made a deal with Turkey," said Nicholas Geralis, a 49-year-old
Greek cargo ship captain. "Politics are very dirty and very deep. They are never going to say what really
happened."