Greece threw a lifeline to Italy yesterday, urging members of the European Union to acknowledge that the crisis over Kurdish leader Abdallah

Ocalan was really a problem for all of Europe and must be tackled.

Greek Alternate Foreign Minister George Papandreou said Mr. Ocalan could have turned up in any of the 15 EU member-states, provoking the

same standoff between allied countries that now confronts Rome and Ankara.

The fact that he flew to Italy seeking political asylum should not be a pretext for Europe to turn its back and let Italy go it alone in a crisis of

unpredictable dimensions, he said.

The Italian and Turkish prime ministers have clashed verbally over Turkey's demands for the extradition of Mr. Ocalan to stand trial on terrorism

charges, which carry the death penalty, and over Italy's warning that constitutionally it cannot do so.

"It really is not an Italian problem or a question of Italian-Turkish relations. It is a European problem," Mr. Papandreou said in an interview

during a meeting of European foreign and defence ministers in Rome.

Many European countries are home to thousands of Kurdish refugees from Turkey.

"If we are to act responsibly as the European Union, we should take this issue up and see if we can find ways with the Turkish government, to

deal with this in a more appropriate manner according to our common values and common positions."

"What we need to do is for both sides, Turkey and the EU, to say this (Kurdish minority) issue exists. We can't hide from it or solve it through

mutual name-calling and recriminations," Mr. Papandreou said.

Today it was the Kurds. Tomorrow the problem might be with Turkey's Islamic parties or another minority or its journalists.

Mr. Papanderou agreed that the first reaction by Italy's EU partners to the Ocalan case was: "Thank God it wasn't us!"

"However, I think the second, cool-headed thought from colleagues was that this is a problem we can't let Italy stand alone with," he added.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, whose country hosts thousands of Kurds and which has banned Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party

(PKK) said the crisis could be an opportunity to open up the whole question of Kurdish minority rights.

Defence Minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos yesterday expressed the hope that the request for political asylum by Mr. Ocalan in Italy would open the

way to a political solution of the Kurdish problem.

Speaking in Rome, where he participated in a meeting of the defence ministers of the WEU, he described as "impossible" a military solution for

the Kurdish problem and condemned terrorist violence, whether it originates by individuals, organised groups or the state.

The latest developments signal the definitive end to the military and terrorist conflict with Turkey and the beginning of an effort by the Kurdish

people at a purely political level for self-determination and self- government in southeastern Turkey, he said.

ANA 18 nov 98