Turkey spirited the Kurdish rebel leader, Mr Abdullah Ocalan, out of Kenya yesterday after a three-month chase around Europe and Africa and triumphantly brought him back to face trial.
The shadowy international operation to detain Mr Ocalan, who has dominated the Kurdish nationalist movement, could effectively end 14 years of separatist conflict in south-eastern Turkey, political analysts believe.
However, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) group founded by Mr Ocalan pledged to fight on regardless for self-rule in the mountainous triangle where Turkey meets Iran, Iraq and Syria.
A guerrilla prisoner at a jail in south-east Turkey died when he set himself on fire to protest at Mr Ocalan's arrest. The 51-year-old PKK leader is seen by Turkey as a terrorist responsible for the deaths of some 29,000 people. "We vowed we would get him wherever he was in the world. We have carried out our promise," the Prime Minister, Mr Bulent Ecevit, his voice trembling with emotion, announced.
Daily newspapers printed special afternoon editions. "Victory," the Hurriyet paper declared in a banner headline.
Istanbul stocks jumped 8.41 per cent on hopes that Mr Ocalan's arrest could bring peace to the impoverished south-east where the government spends $8 billion a year on counter-insurgency.
Mr Ocalan in theory could face the death penalty, but Turkey has not executed a convict since 1984.
Kurds yesterday occupied more than a dozen Greek diplomatic missions in Europe in anger at Athens' role in Mr Ocalan's capture.
The guerrilla leader had been in hiding for 12 days in a Greek diplomatic building in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. The Greeks said he disappeared on the way to the airport while accompanied by Kenyan security officials.
But Mr Ecevit denied any Greek role in the rebel's capture. "We had absolutely no contact with them," he said.
"Nothing took place which we would be ashamed to announce. But in the interest of not disturbing those parties who took part in this operation, I will use a local expression and say `let us eat the grape, but not ask where it came from'," he said.
Mr Ocalan arrived at Istanbul at 3 a.m. (1 a.m. Irish time) on an aircraft that then took him to an air base in western Turkey.
He had been searching for a safe haven since Syria threw him out of Damascus under Turkish pressure last November. He failed to find long-term refuge in Italy, Russia, the Netherlands and other European countries.
Greece blamed Kenya over the arrest and recalled its ambassador in Nairobi.
"We were very suspicious over the way Kenya handled the matter," the Greek Foreign Minister, Mr Theidoros Pangalos, told parliament. "We put pressure on Kenya and Ocalan knew of our reservations. Our ambassador has been recalled."
Mr Pangalos said Mr Ocalan, who spent 12 days at the Greek embassy in Nairobi, made the mistake of trusting Kenyan authorities who promised to take him to the Netherlands.
However, a Greek lawyer for ERNK, the political wing of Mr Ocalan's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, told a news conference that the PKK leader was forced out of the embassy and did not follow Kenyan authorities willingly.
The arrest prompted a wave of criticism from Greek opposition parties and within the ruling PASOK socialist party of Me Costas Simitis
A leading Kurdish official appealed to supporters to end protests at Greek missions around Europe after Athens threatened to take "merciless" action to free hostages.
Kurdish militants evacuated overnight the Greek, and Kenyan embassies in Vienna after all-day occupations. In Sydney, about 50 Kurdish protesters who stormed the Greek consulate ended their occupation peacefully.
In The Hague, the Greek ambassador's wife, eight-year-old son and a woman member of staff who had been taken hostage were released when protesters surrendered to police.
A team of lawyers for Mr Ocalan arriving in Turkey from the Netherlands late last night was refused entry into the country, the lawyers and a Dutch diplomat said. Ms Britta Boehler said that she and two other lawyers representing Mr Ocalan were taken off the plane and: "We were told that we were barred from entering the country by a special order from the Turkish interior ministry."