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I will never stop backing PKK, says closed
Kurdish party (KDSP) leader Faik Guply
4.11.2007 |
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November
4, 2007
SULAIMANIYAH, Kurdistan region 'Iraq',--
A Kurdish security force in Sulaimaniyah city closed
down the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party after
closing its headquarters in Erbil earlier on
Saturday for backing the Turkey's Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK).
"My party will continue to support the free
revolutionaries in Turkey's Kurdistan," said a
defiant Dr Faik Guply, the leader of the Kurdistan
Democratic Solution Party.
The measures coincide with the inauguration of the
Iraq Neighbors conference hosted by the Turkish city
of Istanbul earlier on Saturday. "A security force
of 50 armed men raided the Kurdistan Democratic
Solution Party, cordoned its headquarters and denied
access to any journalists," VOI correspondent in
Sulaimaniyah said.
"After the closing of our party headquarters in
Erbil, another security force closed down our
headquarters in Sulaimaniyah," Guply said.
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Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (KDSP) leader Dr
Faik Guply. The Iraqi Kurdistan government has begun
closing the offices of the KDSP -- a local political
group with close ties to the Turkey's PKK rebels.
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) |
"Our party is a nationalist one that sympathizes
with and supports the revolutionaries in Turkey's
Kurdistan. The Turkish government pressed the Iraqi
Kurdistan Region government to fight us and close
down our headquarters in the region," he said.
Guply said closure of "our party's headquarters will
never stop us from backing the free revolutionaries
in Turkey's Kurdistan," expecting his party's
headquarters in Kirkuk and Baghdad to be closed down
too.
Earlier in the day a high-level source in Erbil
security department said that Kurdish security
forces in Erbil closed the headquarters of pro-PKK
Kurdish parties, starting with the Kurdistan
Democratic Solution Party.
"We have decided to close down all headquarters of
pro-PKK Kurdish parties in Erbil, and we already
started with the Kurdistan Democratic Solution
Party," the source, who asked not to have his name
mentioned, said.
The source did not reveal the standards through
which parties would be included in these measures
nor their numbers.
On whether members of these parties would be
arrested, he replied that as a beginning "their
headquarters will be closed down and if they
continued their activities we would arrest their
members too."
The Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party, led by Dr.
Guply, was founded in 2003 and so far failed to
obtain a license to work in the autonomous Iraqi
Kurdistan Region although it received the go-ahead
from the Iraqi government.
The party participated in the Iraqi parliamentary
elections but obtained zero seats.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had said in a
speech before the Iraqi Neighbors conference that
his government has taken "a firm decision to close
down all offices and headquarters of the terrorist
PKK all over Iraqi territories."
"We announce before you today that we have taken
drastic measures to block any facilities reaching
this terrorist organization via airports and
borders," Maliki said, adding "the constitution of
Iraq compels us to respect relations with
neighboring countries and not to allow our
territories to be used to wage aggression on any
country."
The crisis on the Iraqi-Turkish borders
unprecedentedly flared up during the past couple of
weeks after the PKK, or Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan
in Kurdish, which is outlawed in Turkey, escalated
operations against Turkish forces.
Fighters of the PKK, holed up in mountainous areas
in northern Iraq, had killed, wounded and captured
more than 40 Turkish soldiers lately.
After the PKK escalations, the Turkish government
received the thumbs up from parliament to carry out
a military operation against the PKK inside Iraqi
Kurdistan region territories, massing about 100,000
troops on the joint borders with Iraqi Kurdistan.
An Iraqi political and security delegation had paid
a visit to the Turkish capital Ankara last week to
discuss the PKK issue with Turkish officials in a
bid to defuse the crisis, but the negotiations
failed as Turkey claimed that the proposals offered
by the Iraqi delegation to deal with the PKK were
"unpractical and would take a long time to enforce."
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', Ankara fears
this could fan separatism among its own large
Kurdish population in southeast Turkey. Turkey is
home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds.
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.
www.ekurd.net
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
In Turkey, the term Kurdistan is a
politically-charged reference to Kurdish-majority
areas in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq.
VOI
**
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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