Volkswacht Bodensee - Kurdish protest disrupts European Parliament

The debate session was halted for three hours and MEPs left the chamber as the protesters brandished banners bearing Ocalan's image and shouted slogans hostile to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"They are pro-PKK activists," MEP Bernard Guetta told AFP, referring to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), banned in Turkey and blacklisted as a terror organisation in the EU.

The French centrist said the protesters were on an upper deck above the Strasbourg chamber, some sitting on a balustrade and dangling their legs above the parliament's floor.

Another MEP, German social democrat Bernd Lange, said the way the protesters were clinging precariously to the balustrade appeared as if they were threatening to jump.

Parliamentary security intervened to talk the group down and no one was hurt. Later parliamentary speaker Roberta Metsola reopened the debate and said the protesters had left.

"This parliament stands proudly for freedom of expression, and the right to protest, but any demonstration must always respect our rules, public safety and not disrupt our democratic debates," she said.

Ocalan is the best-known leader of Kurdish rebellion in Turkey, but was arrested in Kenya by Turkish agents on February 15, 1999 and sentenced to death in June of the same year.

Now 73, his sentence was reduced to life in prison in 2002 and supporters continue to demand his release.

Last week, PKK militants still fighting in Turkey announced a temporary halt to their operations during rescue work after the massive earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria.

Y.Bouchard--BTB