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Kurds demand removal of Turkish bases in
Iraqi Kurdistan
27.2.2008
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February 27, 2008
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', --
Iraqi Kurds, including the regional Kurdistan
parliament, on Tuesday demanded the closure of
Turkish bases that have been inside Iraqi Kurdistan
territory for more than a decade in the face of an
incursion by
Turkish troops against Turkish-Kurdish PKK rebels.
Kurdish commanders invited the Turkish military to
set up bases on Iraqi Kurdistan soil amid fighting
between rival Iraqi Kurdish factions in the 1990s
when executed dictator Saddam Hussein was still in
power in Baghdad.
Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of Kurdistan
government, said on Sunday that an agreement had
been in force since 1997 to allow the Turks to have
four military bases inside the Kurdistan region.
But on Tuesday, the regional parliament approved a
resolution calling on the regional government to
demand the closure of the bases.
"We demand that the Turkish government leave the
bases which were established in the Kurdistan region
due to the exceptional circumstances the region
experienced before the fall of the former regime,"www.ekurd.net
the resolution read.
The regional parliament also condemned the incursion
that Turkish troops launched on Thursday against
rear-bases of the rebel Turkey's Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK).
The resolution demanded that "the American
government protect Iraqi sovereignty and the skies
above the Kurdistan region."
There have been mounting tensions around the four
bases at Barmeni, Girilok, Kanimasi and Sircy since
Turkish troops crossed the border.
A top aide of regional president Massoud Barzani
said troops had left the Barmeni base, 45 kilometres
(30 miles) north of the Kurdish city of Duhok,www.ekurd.net
in tanks on Thursday as
the incursion began.
The Turkish force had no permission from the
regional government and it was stopped by the Kurds'
peshmerga militia, Barzani's chief of staff, Fuad
Hussein, added.
Kamal Mohammed Abd al-Rahim, 55, said he had been
among the peshmerga who had confronted the Turkish
force.
"We told them we are not allowing you to pass and
you can go only over our dead bodies," he said.
"We don't want them to stay here, but what shall we
do? They should be forced out by the Kurdish
leadership."
Local resident Abu Shihab denied that there were any
PKK fighters in the area for the Turkish troops to
hunt down.
"I call them devils and if they are searching for
the PKK ... then they are not here," he said.
Local farm mechanic, Yasin Ahmed, 37, expressed
similar hostility to the presence of the Turkish
base.
"When I see these Turkish soldiers moving around, I
feel like I am seeing an enemy. I want them to
leave," said Ahmed, who can see the base from his
hilltop workshop.
"We are afraid they may also participate in the
incursion and inflict more harm on us."
Over 39,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas have been killed since 1984 when 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 rebels.
The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by
the U.S. and the EU.
Turkey rejects direct talks with Iraqi Kurdistan
government, Officially, Turkey does not recognise
the regional government of Kurdistan led by
president Massoud Barzani.
Turkey has never, and still does not, recognize the
Iraqi Kurdistan region government (KRG) and refuses to
meet with its representatives in any official
capacity. That reflects Ankara's fear that any
international respect shown to the autonomous Iraqi
Kurdistan region would only embolden Turkey's own
large Kurdish minority to seek similar home-rule
status.
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', Turkey fears
this could fan separatism among its own large
Kurdish population in southeast Turkey.
Analysts believe the Turkish raids inside Iraqi
Kurdistan region had a secondary purpose of
discouraging a referendum on Kirkuk city. Ankara
fears that if the oil-rich Kirkuk joins Kurdistan,
the Kurds will have the economic foundation they
need for an independent state.
AFP | Agencies
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