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Turkey says Iraqi Kurdistan operation may
continue
20.12.2007
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December
20, 2007
Ankara, -- Turkey's military may stage more
cross-border operations into Kurdistan region in
'northern Iraq' to hunt down Turkey's separatist
Kurdish PKK rebels, Turkey's parliament speaker said
Thursday, as the justice minister again urged the
rebels to surrender.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan thanked the
Turkish armed forces, calling their operations
successful, and said Turkey was at an important
stage of its fight against the rebels of the
Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, who are
based in Kurdistan 'northern Iraq'.
"Our army is doing whatever is necessary. Our
security
forces will continue to do whatever is
necessary,"www.ekurd.net
Erdogan told a news conference when
asked about reports of a limited land offensive
against the PKK in Kurdistan 'northern Iraq' on
Tuesday.
Turkey, which has massed thousands of troops along
the border, sent hundreds of them across into the
mountains of Kurdistan region in 'northern Iraq' on
Tuesday. It said it inflicted heavy losses on
Turkish Kurd rebels in a small-scale incursion that
lasted about 15 hours - and in air strikes by as
many as 50 fighter jets on suspected rebel hideouts
two days earlier.
"The Turkish armed forces will carry on with these
operations whenever they are needed," parliament
speaker Koksal Toptan said Thursday.
Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said, "I hope the
members of the terrorist group understand that they
cannot achieve their aim by fighting the security
forces."
"They should come and give themselves up to the
merciful hands of the state. They should rejoin
their mothers, their fathers and relatives and live
in peace as a citizen of this country," he said.
The government has said it plans to expand an
amnesty law that pardons rebels who leave the PKK
voluntarily and who have not been engaged in
fighting.
The rebels have battled for autonomy in southeastern
Turkey for more than two decades and use strongholds
in northern Iraq for cross-border strikes. Turkey
has said it can no longer tolerate the attacks on
its troops, and in October Turkey's Parliament
authorized the country's military to strike back at
the rebels inside Iraqi Kurdistan.
Iraqi Kurdistan 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',www.ekurd.net
Turkey fears this could
fan separatism among its own large Kurdish
population in southeast Turkey.
Tuesday's raid was the first confirmed Turkish
ground operation targeting rebel bases inside Iraq
since the U.S. invasion in 2003, though about 1,200
Turkish military monitors have operated in Kurdistan
'northern Iraq' since 1996 with permission from
local authorities.
The incursion was not a large-scale push that some
feared could destabilize a relatively calm part of
Iraq.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported
that more than 1,800 people fled their homes in
parts of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdistan last
weekend, and Iraqi officials have complained that
Turkey's actions are a violation of Iraqi
sovereignty. They have also said they recognize the
threat posed by the PKK.
Since 1984 the PKK
took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly
Kurdish southeast of Turkey. A large Turkey's Kurdish community
openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in southeast of Turkey.
The PKK demanded Turkey's recognition of the Kurds'
identity in its constitution and of their language
as a native language along with Turkish in the
country's Kurdish areas,www.ekurd.net
the party also demanded
an end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, granting them full
political freedoms.
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,
a large Turkey's Kurdish community 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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