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PKK rebels have crossed into Iran:
ex-leader Osman Ocalan
12.11.2007
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November 12, 2007
KOYA, Kurdistan region ' Iraq', -- Thousands
of Turkey's Kurdish guerrillas have crossed the
border into Iran to escape a threatened Turkish
offensive against their mountain redoubts in
Kurdistan 'northern Iraq', a former rebel leader
said.
When and if the Turkish troops arrive, they will
only be "chasing shadows", Osman Ocalan, brother of
jailed rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, said in his
home in Koya in Iraq's northern Kurdistan region.
"I know that since last month thousands of PKK
(Kurdistan Workers' Party) members have crossed into
Iran," said Osman Ocalan, who spent 18 years
fighting Turkish troops before abandoning the armed
struggle in 2004. |
Osman Ocalan, ex-leader of PKK |
"At least a thousand
crossed into Turkey," he added. "Only a small number
remain in Iraq."
PKK camps, said Ocalan, are scattered in the remote
region where the borders of Iraq, Iran and Turkey
meet.
"They are constantly moving from one country to the
other. They don't stay long in one place.
"The aim is not to offer targets. They know that one
should not face the Turks directly, but rather carry
out specific guerrilla operations against them."
PKK rebels, he added, receive support from Kurds in
Iraq, Iran and Turkey.
"When they pass from one area to another, they
always have people on whom they can rely."
Osman Ocalan, who lived the life of a guerrilla
between 1986 and 2004, said the PKK camps are in
inaccessible places high in the mountains rich in
caves and steep valleys.
The Kurdish guerrillas, he added, know the rugged
terrain like the backs of their hands.
"Some caves can accommodate 450 people sitting,
others are smaller but undetectable," he said.
"There are many fallback positions."
An invasion, expected since last month when the
Turkish parliament gave the go-ahead for military
reprisals against PKK rebels who staged a bloody
ambush of Ankara's troops, would not be the first
against the PKK in the region.
"In 1992 it was similar. And then they had the
support of the two Kurdish parties of Iraq and their
men. They claimed, to make propaganda, to have
killed more than 2,000 of ours, but I can assure you
no more than 150 died," he said.
"This time as well, if they attack, we will suffer
losses but only minor ones. They will not manage to
get rid of us like this."
According to him, PKK rebels will only agree to lay
down their arms if his brother, who has become a
semi-cult figure to his followers, is released from
jail and Turkey transforms itself "into a federal
state, based on the German model." www.ekurd.net
He stressed that he himself had left the rebellion
"to be able to have a personal life, to begin a
family... The PKK does not allow it."
Osman Ocalan, whose family has the right to make
weekly half-hour visits to the PKK leader on the
prison island of Imrali, south of Istanbul, where he
is the sole inmate, also said that his brother's
health was "bad".
He charged that Turkey is denying urgent medical
treatment to his brother and that suicide bombers
would strike Turkish cities if he dies in prison.
"Thousands of people will die in Turkey, civilians
as well as soldiers," he warned.
Since 1984 the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the
country's mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
AFP
**
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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