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Turkey bombards Iraqi Kurdistan border villages
26.6.2007 |
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June
26, 2007
Kashan Valley, Kurdistan region (Iraq)
On a mountain ridge overlooking a riverside picnic
spot in Kashan, Roshad Adel picked at the broken
soil. Within minutes he was holding a handful of
shrapnel.
Looking at the twisted pieces of metal glistening in
the sun, the threads of rifling clearly visible, the
23-year-old described how his brother was hit by
such a chunk of metal as the family slept in a tent
nearby.
"It was midnight, we were all asleep when suddenly
there was a massive boom and Dilgesh was shouting in
agony. We had to rush him to hospital."
The shelling is part of an effort by Turkey to
create a de facto 10-mile buffer zone inside Iraq
and stop terrorists of the Kurdish independence
movement, PKK, infiltrating its borders from their
mountain training camps.
Turkey has mobilised more than 20,000 of its
soldiers in an operation to stop the PKK using Iraq
as a staging post for a new campaign of violence.
Yesterday Turkish newspapers sounded an alarm over
the terrorist group after it staged an Iraqi-style
suicide truck bomb attack on Turkish troops for the
first time. Two men died when the fuel tanker they
were driving exploded at a checkpoint in the
southern Turkish province of Tunceli.
Troops have been dropped deep into Iraqi Kurdistan
territory in violation of the country's sovereignty,
but it is the hundreds of shells fired into Iraq
that has most affected border residents. Anything
within the zone has become fair game, with villages
regularly targeted.
Jamal Othman Mohammad, a village elder, said the 70
families of Kashan village have been forced to move
back from the Turkish border.
They are living in tents while new housing is being
built for them by a Christian charity. Mr Mohammad
said that despite the shelling, villagers felt no
animosity towards Turkey. "We are human beings like
the Turkish people," he said. "We are not harming
them. We want to live in peace."
While Kashan residents denied that there was a PKK
presence in the area, as Turkey alleges, there were
no men of working age to be seen during The Daily
Telegraph's visit. At the last Kurdish army
checkpoint several miles south, the commander gave
us an explicit warning that we travelled on at our
own risk. "From here on is PKK territory," he said.
"We don't go in there much, so I can't guarantee
your safety."
The Kurdish rebel group fought Turkish troops in a
bitter civil war that cost 30,000 lives in the
1990s. With its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned
on an island off Istanbul, 3,500 PKK fighters took
shelter in northern Iraq under the protection of the
American-allied Kurdish authorities. Turkey fears
that a stronger, semi-autonomous Kurdistan inside
Iraq will fuel PKK attempts to unite Kurds inside
its own borders.
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Hundreds of families are living in tents in Iraqi
Kurdistan border with Turkey, too afraid to return
to their villages because of constant Turkish
shelling
The 70 families of Kashan village have been forced
to move to further back from the Turkish border in
Kurdistan |
Turkey has steadily increased pressure on Washington
for American troop action against the group. But the
US forces in Iraq claim their hands are tied, having
passed responsibility for security in the Kurdish
region to local commanders.
Joseph Ralston, a retired American air force general
appointed by the White House to mediate between
Turkey and the Kurds, conceded last week that
America could only voice its opinion on the fate of
the PKK. "I would like to see the Kurds in northern
Iraq oppressing the terrorist PKK and ousting
terrorists," he told Turkey's Star newspaper. "You
can't indulge them. Everybody, including the US,
should treat them as they are, as murderers."
But the regional government refuses to move against
its brother Kurds. It refutes claims that the PKK is
a rejuvenated threat to Turkey. A former British
army officer, who is now an adviser to the Kurdistan
regional authorities, said the Turkish military was
inflaming the issue for domestic political reasons.
"The Turkish army and PKK need each other, it's
symbiotic," he said. "Without the PKK, the army
couldn't keep a million men under arms and without
the army the PKK would wither on the vine."
telegraph co.uk
** 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.
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.
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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