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Iraqi Kurdistan Braced for Turkish Attack
3.11.2007
By Farman Abdul-Rahman in Qandil (ICR No. 236,
2-Nov-07)
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Kurdish fighters in autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan say
they will resist a Turkish invasion of the region.
November 3, 2007
Kurdistan Region 'Iraq'
Kurdish fighters deep in the mountains of Iraqi
Kurdistan say they are prepared to fight Turkey if
it invades northern Iraq to flush out PKK
guerrillas.
General Jabbar Yawar, spokesman of the General
Command of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s
Border Guard Force, said that Kurdish forces will
fight Turkey if it enters Iraq.
"We have a strong force in Kurdistan, and we have
been able to protect the security of Kurdistan for
years,” he said. “We will not stay out of the way of
the Turkish army. We will resist."
The general argued that Turkey was using its
conflict with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, PKK, as
a pretext for a military incursion into the region
of northern Iraq which enjoys self-rule.
"Turkey has not been able to accept this region up
to now,” maintained Yawar.
The PKK is facing one of its most serious challenges
from Turkey since setting up bases in the Qandil
mountain area of Kurdish northern Iraq in 1982.
Turkey is threatening to invade following weeks of
fierce battles over the Iraqi-Turkish border between
PKK rebels and Turkish forces, in which dozens have
been killed on both sides.
Ankara accuses the US and the Iraqi governments of
not doing enough to stop the PKK, which was founded
in Turkey, from conducting cross-border attacks.
Washington, which is an ally of Turkey, is leading
diplomatic efforts to prevent a Turkish invasion of
northern Iraq, and US Secretary of State Condoleeza
Rice held high-level talks with Turkish leaders on
November 2
Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set
to meet US president George W Bush on November 5,
and Turkish officials have said the country will
decide whether it will send troops into Iraq after
the meeting.
While US and Turkey consider the PKK to be a
terrorist organisation, the party and its supporters
say that it fights for Kurdish rights.
Although US and Iraqi officials have pledged to
crack down on the party in recent meetings with
Turkish officials, Iraqi Kurdish leaders and PKK
fighters say its bases in the rugged Qandil mountain
range are impossible to access.
The Qandil mountain range is about 3,500 metres high
and about 1,500 square kilometres, lying between
Iraq, Iran and Turkey.
The terrain is known in Iraqi Kurdistan as “Iraq’s
Tora Bora”, a reference to the mountainous area of
Afghanistan where al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters are
thought to be hiding.
The PKK controls the towns below the mountains, and
it is necessary to walk - and sometimes even crawl -
up steep terrain to reach the party’s bases.
Guerrillas have also built trenches and tunnels
throughout the mountain range, which is blanketed by
snow in the winter.
Abdularahman Chadirchy, a member of the PKK’s
command board, said that because of the harsh
conditions, he does not believe that Turkey will
launch a wide ground attack on PKK bases, despite
reports that Turkey has sent 100,000 troops to the
border.
"If Turkey attacks Qandil, it will be by air," he
said.
Fuad Hussein, chief of staff for the KRG, told IWPR
that Iraqi Kurdistan’s Peshmarga military forces are
not able to drive out the PKK from such impenetrable
terrain.
"Turkey is asking the Kurdistan region for something
that is beyond our ability," said Hussein, who has
called on the PKK to stop attacking the Turkish
military and “giving them the pretext to come into
the Kurdish region”.
He also noted that rooting out the PKK would leave
the mountain range open to Islamic extremists, such
as Ansar al-Islam, the Kurdish-affiliated al-Qaeda
group.
Nowruz Jarand, a member of the PKK Leadership
Council, confirmed that the group had fought Ansar
al-Islam in the mountains.
She also said that the PKK continues to hold eight
Turkish soldiers as prisoners of war, since they
were captured during clashes in late October. Jarand
said the troops were with the PKK inside Turkey and
invited the International Committee for the Red
Cross to visit them.
While the KRG condemned the capture of the Turkish
troops - and has called on the PKK to stop attacking
Turkey - Iraqi Kurds tend to support the group,
arguing that Turkey discriminates against its
Kurdish population.
Many are also suspicious that Turkey wants to limit
the power of the KRG.
Saria Mustafa, 20, a Syrian Kurdish fighter with the
PKK, who joined the rebels last year, said she is
ready for a Turkish attack.
"They might reach Qandil,” she said while sipping a
cup of tea after a military training, “but it will
be over my dead body."
Farman Abdul-Rahman is an IWPR correspondent in
Sulaimaniyah.
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