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Iraqi Kurdistan Braced for Turkish Attack.
Story behind the story
21.11.2007
By Frman Abdul-Rahman in Sulaimaniyah
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Link
to
original article by
Frman Abdul-Rahman in Qandil. Published in ICR No.
236, 2-Nov-07
November 21, 2007
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', --
I’ve closely followed the news about a possible
Turkish military invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan for
several months.
As a journalist, getting permission to interview the
Kurdistan Workers' Party's, PKK, is not an easy
process. A chain of PKK members must review your
request, and if you are lucky, you will be granted
an interview. Then, a long journey begins.
Shortly after the PKK approved my interview request,
I headed off with two colleagues to the rugged
Qandil mountain, where the guerrillas are based. The
area is about 100 kilometres northeast of
Sulaimaniyah in northern Iraq.
The PKK has been fighting the Turkish government for
Kurdish autonomy in Turkey since 1984. Since then,
thousands of troops and civilians have been killed.
Turkey has always been worried about the fact that
the PKK are based in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the
Turkish government has accused the Iraqi government
of not doing enough to stop the PKK from crossing
the border and attacking Turkish troops.
Recently, fighting has flared between Turkey and the
PKK, and Turkey has threatened to invade Iraqi
Kurdistan to root out the PKK for weeks. I went to
Qandil mountain to cover PKK’s side of the story. As
a reporter, it was important for me to see the
situation with my own eyes.
The fighting had mostly been between Turkish troops
and PKK fighters near Duhok along the Iraqi-Turkish
border in north-central Iraq, so I was not walking
into conflict area. But the PKK on Qandil mountain
will no doubt be targeted if Turkey decides to
launch a major military operation. We are still
waiting to see whether Turkey will invade. www.ekurd.net
This was my second trip to PKK-controlled areas in
Qandil, and I was better prepared this time with
outdoor clothes and shoes for the harsh mountain
environment. If a PKK member does not pick you up at
the PKK’s checkpoint, you must walk for at least a
kilometre up a steep mountain.
We crossed the last Kurdistan Regional
Government-controlled checkpoint, where our names
were recorded. After driving about 30 km through
windy, mountain roads, we arrived at the first PKK
checkpoint.
The area between the Iraqi Kurdish
government-controlled area and PKK territory is
about 30 km in length. It is basically a buffer zone
and even though there are many villages and it is
technically part of Sulaimaniyah province, the
Kurdish government has not been in the area since
2000. The locals run their own administration in
these areas and the PKK holds a lot of power here.
The environment alone explains why the PKK set up
its base here. The mountain is about 3,500 metres
above sea level.
While the Turkish army has launched military
operations in the past to uproot the PKK in Qandil,
they have never succeeded.
At the PKK checkpoint, the guards took our mobile
phones even though there was no network coverage.
Our guide, PKK commander Abdularahman Chadirchy
arrived in a car at the checkpoint, saving us the
hike up the mountain.
We rode with him for around 2 km until he stopped
the car. We conducted the interview not at a PKK
base but on the mountain slope, and we were not
allowed to take pictures.
Chadirchy left us for what he promised would be a
few minutes, but it actually lasted for two hours.
The commander came back with a female guerrilla and
told us that we should interview her.
She seemed liked she had been had been trained by
the spin doctors and answered every question very
briefly - mostly yes or no. It was not the best
interview I’ve ever had, so we asked Chadirchy to
let us interview someone else. At first, he was
reluctant but eventually he let us talk to another
female guerrilla who was more open.
The experience was vastly different than when I
interviewed the PKK in Qandil in June. At that time,
I could meet most of the PKK’s political and
guerrilla leaders. I was allowed to freely roam
around their camps and interview as many people as I
wanted. I could also choose my own guide, unlike
this time, when I felt I was being watched all the
time. The PKK told us they were concerned about
security. www.ekurd.net
I wanted to spend the night with the PKK in the
hopes that I could get more information, but the
commander said we could not stay with them and that
we should go back to Sulaimaniyah. The guide said
they couldn’t protect us.
I arrived in Sulaimaniyah late in the evening and
started to put the story together. I sent it
immediately and received several questions from my
editors. I was writing under a tight deadline to
produce the story because the situation was
constantly changing, and we were competing with
other news organisations.
In the end, the assignment was well worth it and I
was glad that I had interviewed the PKK when I did.
A few days after my trip, the Kurdish government
prohibited journalists from travelling to Qandil and
other PKK areas.
Frman Abdul-Rahman is an IWPR journalist in
Sulaimaniyah.
Source: iwpr net
**
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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