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DIYARBAKIR,
Turkey, July 7 (AFP) - Turkey's Kurds admire
the self-rule their Iraqi cousins enjoy, but the
safe haven accorded to Turkish Kurd rebels in
northern Iraq fuels Ankara's fears of Kurdish
separatism and keeps the region under strain.
With the resurgence of violence in Turkey's
southeast by the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
based in neighboring Kurdish-held northern Iraq
since 1999, Ankara believes the Iraqi Kurds are also
accountable.
US reluctance to clamp down on PKK camps in the
Qandil mountains along the Iranian border has
already frustrated Ankara and burdened ties between
the two NATO allies.
The Turkish army, which lost at least 32 men since
clashes intensified in April, says the PKK --
blacklisted as a terror group by the United States
and the European Union -- enjoys "ideal conditions"
in the region thanks to foreign support.
"We are watching carefully how the new Iraqi
administration will approach the activities of this
organization and what steps it will take to prevent
them," land forces commander Yasar Buyukanit was
quoted as saying earlier this month.
The rebels, he said in a newspaper interview, are
able not only to maintain their camps, but also
acquire weapons, move around easily and access
medical facilities for treatment.
The 1984-1999 conflict between the army and the PKK
in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast claimed
nearly 37,000 lives, caused massive destruction and
cost the Turkish economy billions of dollars.
Renewed chaos in the region would threaten the
country's newly-found stability and its already
complicated bid to join the EU.
Out of the estimated 5,000 militants who retreated
to northern Iraq in 1999 after the PKK declared a
unilateral ceasefire, at least 1,500 are believed to
have sneaked back since the truce was called off in
June 2004 on grounds that Ankara's reforms to expand
Kurdish freedoms were inadequate.
Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when
the north was outside Baghdad's control, Turkish
troops made incursions into the region to pursue PKK
fighters with tacit US approval and support on the
ground from the local Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)
of Massoud Barzani.
The war, however, has changed the balance.
The US, swamped by violence in other parts of Iraq,
is unwilling to move troops to a region it regards
as relatively stable.
Barzani, who heads the Kurdish region in the north,
meanwhile, is reluctant to fight fellow Kurds
despite his history of bad blood with the PKK,
especially when Turkey often threatens Iraqi Kurds
over their alleged designs to break away from
Baghdad, analysts say.
Ankara fears Kurdish autonomy in Iraq may set a
destabilizing model for its own sizable Kurdish
community, which has only recently won a measure of
cultural freedom and admires the gains of its Iraqi
kin.
"Turkey should abandon its fears that its Kurds will
follow in the steps of the Iraqi Kurds," said Osman
Baydemir, the mayor of Diyarbakir, the central city
of the southeast.
"If Turkey embraces its Kurdish people in earnest
and guarantees their rights, the Iraqi Kurds will
come to admire Diyarabakir," he said.
Political scientist Dogu Ergil says the Iraqi Kurds
see the PKK as a "trump card" against Ankara and a
"natural ally" if Turkey moves against them to
prevent broader Kurdish autonomy in the region.
"No administration can tolerate an armed group it
does not control," Ergil said. "The day Turkey
declares that it accepts a federal Kurdish state (in
Iraq), There will be no trace of the PKK left
there."
Ilnur Cevik, a Turkish journalist who is close to
the Iraqi Kurdish leadership, wrote recently that
Baghdad is under increasing US pressure to curb the
PKK and is pondering what action to take.
AFP
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