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No Surrender for PKK - Media
monitor
3.8.2006
Press from 2.August.2006
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No
Surrender for PKK
(Awene)
Zuber Aydar, who heads the Kurdistan People's
Congress, the main heir to the Kurdistan Workers’
Party or PKK, has said the group will not surrender
and will defy any attempt by United States and
Turkish forces to root them out in northern Iraq.
Interviewed by the Awene newspaper about the
likelihood of such an attack on PKK bases on Mount
Qandil, Aydar said, "Until the Kurdish question is
solved, we will not accept anything else. In the
meantime, we will not agree to surrender – although
we are not ruling out dialogue. If they come and
attack us, we don't care what happens." The
interview followed a report in theTurkish newspaper
Sabah that Iraqi president Jalal Talabani and
Kurdistan regional president Massoud Barzani had
agreed to a plan whereby Turkey would issue a
general amnesty to the PKK and allow 420 of its
members to go to Europe. "We do not think Talabani
or Barzani are involved in such a project,” said
Aydar. “It’s propaganda by the Sabah newspaper."
Aydar dismissed reports that the PKK planned to
leave Mount Qandil, and his remarks were backed up
by People's Congress spokesman Abdurrahman Cadirci,
who told Awene, "Those who propagandise that we are
leaving Qandil are enemies of the Kurdish people -
they are Turkish intelligence. We are on high
alert."
(Awene is a
Sulaimaniyah-based independent newspaper issued
weekly by Awene Company.)
Erbil Prison “Hides” Inmates From Scrutiny
(Hawlati)
In a follow-up report, Hawlati has discovered
evidence of torture at the Security Department in
Erbil, and can reveal that prisoners are being
concealed from the International Committee of the
Red Cross, ICRC. A reliable source told Hawlati,
"Two buildings that lie behind the General Security
Building in Erbil and are now designated anti-terror
prisons contain solitary-confinement cells which the
ICRC failed to visit during a tour of the facility
some months ago, because it was unaware that there
were prisoners in them." According to this source,
"On many occasions when the ICRC has visited the
General Security Building, they have been made to
wait in the reception for a while so that those
prisoners whom security officials did not want to be
seen could be hidden away."
(Hawlati is
issued weekly by the Ranj Print House.)
Deputy Premier Discusses PKK with Turks
(Al-Sabah al-Jadid)
Iraqi deputy prime minister Barhem Salih has arrived
in Ankara for talks on recent political
developments, particularly with regard to the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK. Turkey’s Anadol
news agency said Salih will meet Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The talks will cover Turkish
concerns about Kurdish separatist tendencies in Iraq
and ways of ending the presence of PKK rebels in
northern Iraq.
(Al-Sabah al-Jadid
is an independent political daily issued in
Baghdad.)
Iraq Close to Civil War - Speaker
(Asharq al-Awsat)
Mahmood al-Mashhadani, the speaker of Iraq’s
parliament, has warned that Iraq is close to
embarking on civil war. On a visit to Syria on
August 1, he also said the Iraqi parliament was
trying to place a time-limit on the "American
occupation". Mashhadani recently called on the
United States to "stop interfering in Iraq’s
internal affairs " and accused it of fomenting civil
war. He also said that if the fighting between
Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon escalated and there
was any US intervention “east or west of Iraq”, this
would be “foiled in Baghdad".
(London-based
Asharq al-Awsat, a pro-Saudi independent paper, is
issued daily.)
Oil Workers Threaten Strike
(Azzaman)
Staff at the state-run North Oil Company based in
the city of Kirkuk are threatening to go on strike
unless the management meets their demands for higher
wages and housing allowances, to match the wages by
the South Oil Company. A source in the workers’
trade union said their representatives met company
managers and Kirkuk provincial council on August 1
and presented their ultimatum to the Iraqi oil
ministry. The union representative said the ministry
operates a discriminatory policy as staff at the
South Oil Company get 100 US dollars a month more
than their northern counterparts.
(London-based
Azzaman is issued daily by Saad al-Bazaz.)
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