The government on Wednesday described as "a good piece of fiction" an Athens newspaper report which claimed that Kurdish guerilla leader

Abdullah Ocalan had stopped off at Athens international airport on Octobe 9 to sound out the Greek government about the possibility of being

granted political asylum. "There was never any such issue," government spokesman Yiannis Nikolaou said, adding "Greece is in no way getting

involved in this issue for any reason". Ocalan, the leader of Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was arrested at Rome's Fiumicino airport on

November 12 after arriving from Moscow on a false passport. A report in today's edition of the Athens daily "Athinaiki" claimed Ocalan stopped

off in Athens on October 9.

Greece responds to Ankara charges

In a statement released today, the foreign ministry reacted sharply to Ankara's statements on Tuesday that Greece was supporting the PKK. "The

Ocalan affair has once again brought to the forefront the tragic dimensions of the problem of the complete oppression of human rights in Turkey,"

the statement said. "The Greek government has condemned terrorism from wherever it may originate and has categorically stated to the Turkish

side at the highest level that it has not provided any support whatsoever to the PKK. Consequently, the Turkish claims are rejected as unfounded

and groundless," the statement said. Ankara on Tuesday said Athens and Nicosia were "playing with fire", following Cyprus's statement that

Ocalan not be turned over to Turkey due to its less than stellar performance in the human rights field.

Kurd on hunger strike hospitalised

A young Kurd on a hunger strike in Thessaloniki demanding that political asylum be granted to Kurdish leader Abdallah Ocalan, currently

detained in Italy, was rushed to hospital this morning with signs of fatige. Doctors at the George Papanicolaou hospital said later that 32-year-old

Mazer Dogan's condition was not life-threatening. About 30 other Kurds entered the sixth day of their hunger strike in the Kamaras area of

Thessaloniki, and had installed a television set to monitor developments in the Ocalan case on the satellite Kurdish television station being

broadcast from the Netherlands.

ANA 18 nov 98