Testing Turkey’s Commitment to Europe: the European Court of Human Rights Rules that Turkey’s Trial of Kurdish Leader is Unfair

The European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling today finding that Turkey’s trial of Abdullah Ocalan, the former leader of the Kurdish independence group the PKK (which many Turks view as terrorist), violated the European Convention on Human Rights’ guarantees of a fair trial. The trial of Ocalan is a big deal in Turkey and this ruling is not going to make the EU and joining the EU system any more popular. Still, in a remarkable display of the EU’s attraction for Turkey and maybe the ECHR’s authority, there seems no doubt, from this report, that Turkey will comply with what will no doubt be a very unpopular ruling.