"This is a matter which only affects the countries involved - those that extradited him and Turkey," Germany's Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, insisted to reporters yesterday of the Ocalan affair. "The German government is not dealing with this matter."
He is certainly not alone among EU leaders in hoping that Mr Abdullah Ocalan will now no longer be their problem. Italy, Germany, and Greece have all been touched by the political fallout of his search for asylum.
And agency reports say he also sought refuge unsuccessfully in both Belgium and the Netherlands. A plane carrying him to the former having been turned away from its airspace by military jets.
But Mr Ocalan may cast his long shadow on them all yet again if the Turkish authorities do not handle his trial and punishment with great care.
The nightmare scenario would be a death sentence, likely to trigger major protests and Kurdish-Turkish emigre violence in many EU capitals.
In December the Commission in its report on the readiness of EU's applicants for membership passed judgement on Turkey for the first time. It noted "anomalies in the way the authorities operate, persistent violations of human rights, and important deficiencies in the treatment of national minorities", as well as "an absence of real civilian control of the army".
But the very fact of the Commission's report gave Ankara hope, and since then there have been significant steps to unblock frozen customs union aid, currently awaiting approval in the European Parliament. Two substantial meetings at diplomatic level are also under discussion for this month.
Meanwhile in Brussels, the PKK's political wing said it feared for Mr Ocalan's safety in Turkish custody. "We are afraid for his life. We don't expect any fair treatment," said Mr Mizgin Sen, spokesman in Brussels for the Kurdish Liberation Front (KLF).
An explosion shattered the window of a Kurdish cafe and damaged cars in the eastern Belgian town of Genk late but no one was injured, Belgium's Belga news agency reported.
