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Turkish PM pledges support if army seeks Iraqi
Kurdistan incursion
24.5.2007 |
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Turkey presses Iraq, Europe to curb Kurdish
rebels
May
24, 2007
ANKARA, -- Turkey pressured neighbouring Iraq
Thursday to take urgent measures against Turkish
Kurd militants based there after a suicide bombing,
widely blamed on the rebels, killed six people in
Ankara.
The foreign ministry also called on European
countries to ban organisations affiliated to the
separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), to which
the bomber reportedly belonged.
The appeal came after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan vowed to support any military incursion
against PKK bases in Kurdistan-Iraq.
The Turkish government will back the military if it
pushes for an incursion into Kurdistan (northern
Iraq) to attack Kurdish rebels holed up there, Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan |
"It is out of the question for us to disagree on
this issue with our ... soldiers," Erdogan said in
an television interview on Wednesday
"We expect urgent and resolute measures," ministry
spokesman Levent Bilman said, recalling that Ankara
handed Baghdad a diplomatic note last month
demanding action against the PKK, listed as a
terrorist group by Turkey and much of the
international community.
Ankara says that the Iraqi Kurds who run an
autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq
tolerate -- and even assist -- thousands of PKK
rebels who have found refuge in their region.
Turkey's separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
denied on Wednesday
carrying out a bomb attack which killed six people
in Ankara, after Turkish officials said the attack
bore the hallmarks of the group.
The militants, it says, obtain weapons and
explosives there for attacks on Turkish targets
across the border.
Officials said the method of Tuesday's attack and
the type of explosives used tallied with past
practice of the PKK, whose two-decade campaign for
Kurdish self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast
has claimed more than 37,000 lives.
In its note on April 9, Turkey demanded that Iraq
capture and hand over PKK members, close down
organisations linked to the group and put the PKK on
its list of terrorist organisations.
Bilman also reiterated an appeal to Denmark to shut
down a television station which Ankara says is a PKK
mouthpiece and whose license to broadcast from
Denmark has long poisoned bilateral ties.
"We believe that Roj TV must be closed... We insist
on this issue," he said.
Bilman said Ankara was also exerting pressure on
several European countries he did not name to ban
"certain organisations affiliated to the PKK" that
function "under the guise of civic groups and
cultural centres."
Ankara says the PKK obtains much of its finances
through drug trafficking, people smuggling,
extortion and money laundering in Europe, where the
group has an extensive network.
Many Kurds were given political asylum in European
countries, notably in the 1990s, when Ankara's
heavy-handed policies against the Kurdish minority
put its human rights record under international
spotlight.
AFP
** 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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