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Kurdish PKK leader promise response to
Turkish Strike
4.11.2007
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November 4, 2007
QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraqi Kurdistan-Turkey
border — A defiant spokeswoman for the Turkey's
rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party said Saturday that if
Turkey attacks the group's bases in Iraq's rugged
northeastern Kurdistan mountains, the clandestine
organization's fighters "will teach the Turks an
unforgettable lesson."
Sozdar Avesta, a member of the party's political
bureau, told AP in an interview in Iraq's ungoverned
border region that despite international pressure
the guerrilla group would not abandon its
decades-long struggle against Turkey.
"We are fighting for the liberation of Kurdish
people, we are fighting for our identity, language,
our legitimate rights and self-determination," said
Avesta, 35, one of a number of women PKK members.
Her remarks came as officials from Iraq and the
United States, at an international meeting in
Istanbul, pledged to try to stop cross-border
attacks by PKK forces against military forces in
Turkey's heavily Kurdish southeast.
The Turkish government has threatened to send troops
into Iraqi Kurdistan to chase the insurgent
fighters, after a series of deadly clashes between
the PKK and Turkish military in Turkey in recent
months.
Officials fear that large-scale fighting in
Kurdistan 'northern Iraq' could destabilize the
relatively peaceful north, and jeopardize gains that
U.S. officials say have been made in the rest of the
country.
Iraq's central government has pledged to track and
arrest leaders of the PKK, and cut off supplies. But
any crackdown would require the cooperation of
Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government.
Turkey has accused Iraqi Kurdistan officials of
backing the PKK, a charge that both Kurdistan
regional government and the guerrilla group deny.
Under intense political pressure from Baghdad and
the U.S., Iraqi Kurdish officials Saturday closed
the Erbil and Sulaimaniyah offices of the Kurdistan
Democratic Solution party, alleged to have close
ties to the PKK. The two cities are the largest in
Iraq's northern Kurdish region. www.ekurd.net
Regional authorities have sought to prevent
journalists from talking with the PKK leadership by
closing roads into the Qandil Mountains, where
various Kurdish rebel groups have historically
sought shelter. But an AP reporter managed to meet
PKK officials there late Friday.
In a compound in the mountains here, the PKK flew
their banned flag and decorated their offices with
portraits of Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK leader
arrested in Kenya in 1999. He is currently in a
Turkish prison.
The compound was far from any village, but the
rebels had satellite television, and generators
provide electricity.
Iraqi Kurdish leaders say they are urging the PKK
members to lay down their arms and seek a political
settlement with Turkey.
Avesta suggested that the guerrillas see little
reason to negotiate with Ankara.
"Working to obtain rights under dictatorships
without resorting to arms is a difficult and
impossible matter," Avesta said.
She defended the PKK's assaults on Turkish forces,
saying Ankara had a history of "detention and
genocide campaigns against the Kurds. Therefore the
PKK took up arms to defend itself."
And she warned that if Turkey launches attacks
inside Iraq, the PKK will respond. "The PKK fighters
will teach the Turks an unforgettable lesson," she
vowed.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Turkish
officials Friday the PKK was a "common threat" and
that the United States would help Ankara in its
fight against them. Iraq promised Saturday at a
conference with Rice and Turkey's foreign minister
to work with its neighbors and the U.S. to combat
the guerrillas.
Bozan Takeen, a senior member of the PKK, denied
that PKK fighters use Iraqi territories to launch
attacks inside Turkey, calling the allegations
"baseless."
And he accused Ankara of trying to pit Kurd against
Kurd.
"They want the two Kurdish political parties in
Iraqi Kurdistan to attack us, but this will not
happen," he said.
Takeen said the PKK isn't intimidated by the threat
of an assault by Turkey, a member of NATO. The
Turkish military reportedly has amassed 100,000
troops along the Turkey-Iraqi Kurdistan border. www.ekurd.net
"Turkish attacks will strengthen our determination
to struggle harder to gain our rights," Takeen said.
One PKK fighter, Madani Kurdistani, 20, said he
joined the PKK six years ago when he was just 14.
Turkish authorities in the southeastern city of
Diyarbakir, he said, are pressuring his family,
hoping they will persuade him to turn himself in.
He refuses.
"I am fighting for the sake of people," he said,
carrying a Kalashnikov assault rife. "Life without
freedom is a meaningless one. We have to pay the
price of the freedom."
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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