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Kurdish PKK leader says defeat awaits Turkey's
military in Iraqi Kurdistan
23.7.2007 |
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July
23, 2007
LEWZHE, Iraqi Kurdistan region, -- The
Kurdish rebel commander said he believed the Turkish
military will launch a long-anticipated offensive
against separatist bases in Kurdistan (northern
Iraq) shortly after Sunday's general elections in
Turkey and warned his fighters were prepared for
battle.
But Murat Karayilan, the leader of the separatist
Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, denied Ankara's
charges that his group was using its bases in Iraq
to launch attacks against Turkish forces.
"The date of the Turkish offensive has drawn near,"
Karayilan told The Associated Press Friday in an
interview at his base in the remote village of
Lewzhe in northern Iraq. "We are ready to confront
it and to defend ourselves. The Turkish army cannot
move with ease in this mountainous terrain."
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
threatened to stage an incursion into northern Iraq
if talks with Iraq and the United States after the
elections fail to produce effective measures against
Kurdish guerrillas there.
"Anything can happen. (Military operations) could
come onto the agenda," Erdogan said during a TV show
on private ATV channel Thursday night, when he was
asked whether a cross-border offensive would be
considered after the elections.
"Whatever is necessary could be done immediately. We
are capable enough to do it."
Erdogan's ruling party is likely to win a majority
of seats in the parliamentary vote. Opposition
parties have criticized his government for not
showing determination to stage an incursion into
Iraq, a move which could seriously strain ties with
Iraq and Turkey's NATO ally, the United States.
Karayilan insisted the fighting between the PKK
guerrillas and Turkish forces was taking place
within Turkey's borders some 700 kilometers (435
miles) away from the bases.
The PKK leader denied that the autonomous Kurdish
government in Iraq was supporting his group and said
his group's bases in Kurdistan (northern Iraq) were
primarily political indoctrination centers.
"The arms market and merchants are our main sources
of weapons," said Karayilan who, by way of giving an
example of how his group procures weapons, recounted
how his guerrillas recently ambushed and
commandeered an Iranian truckload of weapons that
was on its way to Lebanon. He said he commands about
10,000 forces.
The United States, facing problems elsewhere in
Iraq, opposes such a move, but Turkey is frustrated
by escalating rebel violence and says Washington has
reneged on promises to help it fight terrorism.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government
has protested to Ankara over incidents of
cross-border shelling of Iraqi territory by the
Turkish army and repeatedly called for a diplomatic
solution to the conflict. Al-Maliki has received an
invitation from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan to visit Turkey, but no date has been set.
Karayilan said any Turkish military incursion into
Kurdistan (northern Iraq) would not be undertaken to
smash PKK bases as Turkey claims but, he contended,
to thwart efforts by Iraq's Kurds to annex the
oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Kirkuk's Arab and Turkomen residents reject Kurdish
claims to Kirkuk. Iraq's constitution, however,
stipulates that a referendum on the fate of Kirkuk
must be held in the city before the end of the year.
"If the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan wins
Kirkuk, that will be a huge economic asset," said
Karayilan. "So, an incursion into Iraq will not take
place because of our bases but because of Turkey's
concerns about the Kurdish entity in Iraq."
Ankara fears that if the oil-rich Kirkuk joins
Kurdistan, the Kurds will have the economic
foundation they need for an independent state
Ankara is anxious to prevent the emergence of a
Kurdish state in Kurdistan region (northern Iraq),
fearing this could fan separatism among its own
large Kurdish population in southeast Turkey .
Kurdish politician says, Turkey is using a 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).
AP
**
Kirkuk city is a Kurdistani city and it lies just
south border of the Kurdistan autonomous region and
it is not under the full control of Kurdistan
Regional Government administration, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
over 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city
and the region's oil industry.
Based on Iraq's Constitution a referendum is to be
held in late 2007 to decide whether the oil-rich
Kurdish province should be annexed to the safe
semiautonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
** 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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