Seeking to contain a growing scandal over Greece's role in the capture of a Kurdish rebel leader, Prime Minister Costas Simitis replaced his Foreign Minister and two other Cabinet members.
George Papandreou, son of Greece's former Prime Minister, Andreas Papandreou, who died in 1996, will replace Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos, who has been assigned most of the blame in the Government for what is being called ''the fiasco'' here.
Today Government officials gave their explanation of how Greece had come to secretly harbor the Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, and then was unable to protect him from Turkish security forces.
A Deputy Foreign Minister known as mild-mannered and moderate, Mr. Papandreou did not hide his dismay over the Government's bungled diplomacy. ''By whatever mistakes, Greece has partial responsibility for turning Mr. Ocalan over to Turkey,'' he said. ''There is an obvious feeling of humiliation in public opinion that has to be recognized.''
The arrest of Mr. Ocalan, who was under Greek protection in Nairobi until he was seized by Turkish agents, was devastating to most Greeks, who sympathize with the Kurdish cause or at least share the Kurds' animosity for the Greeks' historic enemies, the Turks.
Today, 10,000 people demonstrated here in support of Mr. Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party and against the Government's actions, and Greek television repeatedly showed images of Mr. Ocalan being blindfolded by his Turkish captors.
Criticism of what the Government did -- or failed to do -- is unlikely to subside easily. The Ocalan affair could worsen already tense relations between Greece and Turkey.
After Mr. Ocalan's capture on Monday, enraged Kurdish protesters occupied Greek diplomatic posts all over the world to protest what they initially viewed as Greece's betrayal of the Kurdish leader.
The Government's muddled explanation -- that it had sought a safe haven for Mr. Ocalan, but was duped by Mr. Ocalan, the Kenyan Government and the Turks -- was just as hurtful to Greek national pride.
Interior Minister Alekos Papadopoulos and Public Order Minister Philippos Petsalnikos were replaced by Vasso Papandreou -- no relation to the new Foreign Minister -- and Michalis Chrysohoidis.
The departing Foreign Minister, Mr. Pangalos, told reporters at a farewell news conference that Mr. Ocalan had twice secretly entered Greece after he was expelled from Italy at the end of January. The first visit, when he arrived from Russia, was unannounced and unwelcome, according to Mr. Pangalos.
A retired Greek admiral, Andonis Naxakis, a member of a group of hard-line conservatives who favor Kurdish self-rule in Turkey, said he had invited Mr. Ocalan to Greece and spirited him in on a private plane. Mr. Ocalan's supporters misled Greek airport officials by saying the Kurdish leader was a Russian official, Government officials said.
''The first time, he entered Greece without anyone knowing,'' Mr. Pangalos said. ''I will tell you frankly, as the Prime Minister has said, we did not want Ocalan in Greece.''
Mr. Ocalan was in fact a greater diplomatic danger to Greece than to any of the other European countries that shunned him. While Greeks, and particularly the Socialist Government of Mr. Simitis, embraced the Kurdish cause, any overt sign of real support to Mr. Ocalan would have come close to a declaration of war with Turkey.
Greece has long pleaded with the European Union to take up the Kurdish cause and help Greece out of its quandary. Among Government officials, there was deep bitterness about what they saw as Europe's lack of courage.
Mr. Naxakis had alerted the Government to Mr. Ocalan's presence, and Government officials today said that Greek security forces escorted him to a plane and began searching for a country willing to take him.
After he was denied entry into Rotterdam, the Netherlands, then Minsk, Belarus, his plane refueled on the Greek island of Corfu, and he was sent to the Greek Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, for 12 days while Greece searched for another destination in Africa. At the time, Greece denied that it was giving Mr. Ocalan refuge.
Mr. Ocalan's capture, according to Mr. Pangalos, was his own fault. The former Prime Minister said that foreign intelligence services picked up his trail by tracking Mr. Ocalan's mobile phone by satellite. ''He started talking to the whole world,'' Mr. Pangalos said.
Mr. Pangalos said Mr. Ocalan refused to move to another, less detectable area of Kenya and instead made his own arrangements with Kenyan authorities to go to the airport. En route, Mr. Ocalan's car vanished from the Kenyan Government convoy, snatched by Turkish security forces.
Many Greeks expressed skepticism about the Government's explanation.
''To me it's as obvious as the sun: Greece made a deal with Turkey,'' said Nicholas Geralis, a 49-year-old Greek cargo ship captain. ''Politics are very dirty and very deep. They are never going to say what really happened.''
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