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Iraqi Kurdistan warns guerrillas over
Turkey, Iran conflict
5.5.2006
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SULAIMANIYAH,
Kurdistan-Iraq, May 5, 2006 (AFP) , -- A top Iraqi
Kurdish official on Friday warned rebels from the
separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) against
waging a war on Turkey or Iran from Iraqi territory.
The warning comes amid rising tensions between Iraqi
Kurds and Iran and Turkey, both of which have
Kurdish minorities and have been battling separatist
militants from the PKK and its offshoots.
"They (PKK) are in our land. We want them to respect
the law and not use our territory to stage attacks"
against Iran or Turkey, said Imad Ahmed, deputy
prime minister of northern Kurdistan's Sulaimaniyah
province.
"We want them to leave our country but in peace, not
in war. If they want to stay they have to use
politics not weapons."
Ahmed, a member of President Jalal Talabani's
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said the region
hoped to have good relations with neighbouring
Turkey and Iran.
"We do not want any problems with Iran or Turkey and
I condemn any attacks on the two from Iraqi
territory," Ahmed told AFP in an interview.
On Wednesday the PKK, an armed separatist group
which is fighting for an independent Kurdish
homeland in the region, warned Ankara of a "mass
war" if its forces entered Iraqi territory to fight
PKK guerillas.
"We do not want war, but we will launch a mass war
against Turkey if its forces enter Iraqi territory,"
PKK executive body chief Murad Karialan said.
The Turkish army reserves the right to venture into
Iraq to pursue PKK rebels based there, but has
denied reports that such operations are already
under way.
Turkey has amassed thousands of troops along the
border with Iraq for what officials describe as a
large-scale effort to prevent increasing
infiltrations by PKK rebels based in mountainous
hideouts in northern Iraq.
Ankara has long urged Washington and Baghdad to root
out the PKK from northern Iraq, but it has been told
that violence in other parts of the conflict-torn
country is their priority.
The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey,
the European Union and the United States, has been
fighting Ankara since 1984 when it took up arms for
Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey.
On Sunday, Baghdad accused Iranian forces of
entering five kilometers (three miles) into Iraq and
shelling PKK positions.
For around a year, Iran, which has its own Kurdish
minority, has been battling infiltrations by Pejak,
a Kurdish group linked to the PKK.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than
37,000 lives since the PKK launched its separatist
campaign in 1984.
Meanwhile, Ahmed also condemned the alleged military
incursions by Iranian forces into Iraqi territory to
shell PKK positions. Tehran would neither confirm
nor deny such actions.
"Their forces attacked some Iraqi vans, but we hope
this ends soon and we would like to have good
relations with our neighbors," he said.
On Sunday Iraq said Iranian forces were targeting
positions nearly 200 kilometers (115 miles) north of
Sulaimaniyah province held by the PKK in Iraqi
territory.
Iran is bound by treaty with Turkey to fight the
outlawed PKK, which has waged a 15-year insurgency
against Ankara.
In return, Turkey has pledged to fight the Iranian
armed opposition group, the Iraq-based People's
Mujahedeen.
Turkey says some 5,000 armed PKK militants have
found refuge in northern Iraq since 1999, when the
group declared a unilateral ceasefire after the
capture of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
The truce was called off in June 2004.
Kurds make up the majority in three adjacent areas
within Iraq, Iran and Turkey.
AFP
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