Turkey moves Kurdish militant leader to new part of an island prison under peace push

Turkey has moved Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan to a new section of his island prisonISTANBUL -- ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey has moved the country's Kurdish militant leader to a newly built part of an island prison where he has been incarcerated since 1999 as part of efforts to end decades of conflict, a senior Kurdish official said. Improving prison conditions for Abdullah Ocalan, who heads the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has been a key Kurdish demand in the push to end the 42-year conflict between the militant group and Turkish authorities. Ocalan has been imprisoned in a penitentiary on the island of Imrali in the Marmara Sea — which links the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea — since he was captured in 1999. Mithat Sancar, the Kurdish official, confirmed Ocalan's relocation in an interview with Medya Haber TV on Saturday, without providing further details. He did not confirm that the newly built section of the prison has better accommodations, though his remarks appeared to indicate that. Sancar, a lawmaker for the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, also called for the peace process to be sped up and said it had been on “a pause” for the last two months. Ocalan’s move to the new facili...