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Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister condemns
PKK attacks
2.11.2007 |
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NGO says talks under way for release of Turkish
captives
November 2, 2007
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region 'Iraq',--
The prime minister of Iraq's northern Kurdistan
region Friday condemned attacks by Turkey's Kurdish
PKK rebel fighters inside Turkey and said he hopes a
weekend summit in Istanbul will reduce the threat of
Turkish military strikes inside Iraq.
An independent human rights group, meanwhile, told
The AP it is engaged in indirect talks with the
Turkey's Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, for release
of eight Turkish soldiers captured in a PKK ambush
last month.
Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani of Iraq's
semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, issued
a statement Friday saying there was "no place in the
modern civilized world" for the type of violence
carried out by PKK guerrillas.
It was one of the harshest denunciations of the PKK
by a Kurdish Iraqi official in recent weeks, and
came under increasing diplomatic pressure on
Kurdistan's government to distance itself from the
PKK.
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Nechirvan Barzani, Prime
Minister of
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) |
For the most part, Kurdistan officials have tried to
remain neutral, painting the conflict as a matter
strictly between the insurgent group, which has
waged a decades-long war against Turkey, and Ankara.
The PKK has been accused of staging attacks on
Turkey from bases in Iraq's Kurdistan mountainous
northern border region.
"PKK members are present in the Kurdistan region but
the regional government is preventing them from
carrying out any attacks against Turkish targets,"
senior Kurdish politician Mahmud Othman said
earlier.
"There can be no excuse whatsoever for these actions
which undermine peace and stability in the entire
region and which are not in the interest of anyone
involved," Barzani said in his statement.
Turkey has long accused the Kurdistan regional
government of not doing enough to stop PKK
guerrillas, and the country's foreign minister
expressed his frustration Thursday with Barzani's
regime.
Turkey has never, and still does not, recognize the
Kurdistan region government (KRG) and refuses to
meet with its representatives in any official
capacity. That reflects Ankara's fear that any
international respect shown to the autonomous Iraqi
Kurdistan region would only embolden Turkey's own
large Kurdish minority to seek similar home-rule
status.
www.ekurd.net
"We have doubts about the sincerity of the
administration in northern Iraq in the struggle
against the terrorist organization," Foreign
Minister Ali Babacan said. "We want to see solid
steps."
Iraqi Kurdistan forces chief Brig. Gen. Jabbar Yawar,
an undersecretary for the ministry governing
Kurdistan protection forces known as Peshmerga,
earlier said "Turkey wants imaginary and impossible
demands. They want us to kill all PKK for them while
they themselves cannot do that," he said.
Babacan also said his government had taken some
economic measures against the PKK and those who
support it, without elaborating, and that Turkey was
also considering suspending flights to Kurdistan
'northern Iraq' — escalating pressure on the Iraqi
Kurdistan government to move against the PKK.
Barzani's statement Friday said the Kurdish
government wants "peaceful and cooperative relations
with Turkey."
"We have many strong ties to Turkey, both economic
and cultural, and we hope to see these ties grow in
the future. People on both sides of the border have
come to benefit from our trade relations," Barzani
said.
Also Friday, Hussain Sinjari, the president of
Tolerancy International, said his independent human
rights group is in indirect talks with the PKK for
release of eight Turkish soldiers.
The soldiers were captured Oct. 21 in an ambush by
PKK insurgents against the Turkish military in
Turkey's mountainous southeast, not far from the
country's border with Iraq.
But Sinjari denied rumors that arrangements have
been made for the soldiers' imminent freedom, timed
to coincide with a meeting between Iraq and
neighboring countries in Istanbul Friday and
Saturday.
www.ekurd.net
"Tolerancy International is trying to free the
captured soldiers. It is still trying," he said in a
telephone interview. "But we haven't said that they
will be freed today or that they will be handed over
to us today. We are still trying and we are still
hoping, that these young soldiers can go back to
their families and back to their homes in Turkey."
Tolerancy International, based in Erbil, the capital
of Iraq's Kurdistan region, has no ties to the PKK,
Sinjari said. The talks have continued through an
intermediary with direct contact to the insurgent
group, he said, declining to identify the
intermediary or discuss the negotiations farther.
The talks have been going on for more than a week,
according to Tolerancy Internatonal's web site.
Sinjari said the year-old organization aims to
promote a culture of tolerance in the Middle East.
Kurdistan Prime Minister Barzani said Friday that
his government was part of the effort to free the
captured soldiers.
"We are doing all we can to secure the release of
all hostages and to defuse tensions in the area," he
said. "We understand Turkey's frustration with the
actions of the PKK and we share the grief and
sadness over the loss of life that has taken place.
We believe that the only solution to this
long-running problem is to be found in negotiations
and compromise, not further violence."
The PKK, a guerrilla group fighting for Kurdish
independence, has waged war on Turkey since 1984 in
a campaign that cost an estimated 37,000 lives.
PKK attacks against Turkish positions over the last
month have left 35 soldiers dead, according to
government and media reports.
On Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
arrived in Ankara for the regional conference on
Iraq, which is likely to be dominated by efforts to
defuse the threat of the spread of fighting between
the PKK and Turkey into Kurdistan 'northern Iraq'.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
meanwhile, is to meet with President Bush in
Washington Monday. The Turkish military has
indicated it will wait for Erdogan's return before
any large-scale assault on targets inside Iraq.
Kurdistan Prime Minister Barzani said he was
optimistic that the Istanbul conference will reduce
tensions.
"We would like our friends in the region and
elsewhere to know that we are ready at any time, in
any place, and with any group, to sit down and find
a negotiated solution to the current impasse," he
said. "We believe there is an opportunity for a
political solution."
Iraqi Kurdish politician says, Turkey is using
Turkey's Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an
excuse to invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent
the establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq', Turkey fears
this could fan separatism among its own large
Kurdish population in southeast Turkey.
Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan regional
government that holds sway in northern Iraq,
regretted Ankara's refusal to hold direct talks on
the crisis over the Turkey's separatist Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) rebels.
AP
**
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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