THE Kurdistan Communist Party-Iraq called today for the immediate release of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan as events to mark his 73rd birthday took place worldwide. 

It condemned the so-called international conspiracy that led to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader’s abduction in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in 1999, his return to Turkey and subsequent imprisonment. 

After being forced out of Syria in 1998, Mr Ocalan went on something of an odyssey, heading to Italy after first being refused refugee status in Moscow, where Russian communists sought to provide him with sanctuary.