KURDISH nationalists marked the 17th anniversary yesterday of Turkey’s abduction and jailing of their leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader was kidnapped by the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation (NIO) — reportedly with the help of the CIA — in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on February 15 1999.

NIO deputy undersecretary Cevat Ones told now jailed journalist Can Dundar that Mr Ocalan had stood in the way of US schemes to establish a separate Kurdish state in northern Iraq.