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Turkish jets strike Kurdish PKK rebel
bases in Iraqi Kurdistan
12.2.2012
By ekurd.net staff writers |
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February 12, 2012
ANKARA, — Turkish jets have bombed Kurdish
rebel hideouts in northern Iraq, home to members of
the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the
army said on Sunday.
"Two groups of targets belonging to the separatist
terrorists in the regions of Zap and Kahurk were hit
with efficiency in the evening of February 11 by
Turkish air force jets," the general staff said in a
statement posted on its website.
The statement said the planes returned to base
without incident and did not give any details on
possible casualties on the rebel side in the second
such raid in eight days.
The general staff did not say whether the strikes
had caused any casualties. It said all its planes
had returned safely to their bases after completing
their mission "successfully".
Fighting between Turkish forces and PKK rebels has
escalated in recent months.
In October, Turkey launched a major air and
land offensive
against the rebels in the southeast of the country
and in neighbouring northern Iraq after 24 of its
troops were killed in a night-time ambush by rebels.
Fighting between Turkish forces and PKK rebels has
escalated in recent months.
In December, Turkish air strikes
killed 34
Kurdish civilians near the Iraqi Kurdistan border in
an attack which the government said had been a
military blunder,www.ekurd.net
as commanders had mistaken them
for PKK fighters.
Since August 2011, Turkish jets repeatedly carried out
air strikes against the Kurdish PKK separatist
group's bases in
Iraqi Kurdistan region,
under justification of chasing elements of the
anti-Ankara PKK, forcing large numbers of Kurdish
citizens of those areas to desert their home
villages, including an air raid that
killed 7
Kurdish civilians in a village north of Kurdistan’s
Sulaimaniyah city on August 21, 2011.
The president of Iraq's autonomous region of
Kurdistan Massoud Barzani said on November 4, 2011 in Ankara,
that he
opposes Turkey’s military campaign
against Kurdish PKK rebels in northern Iraq as it
will fail to permanently end the conflict.
“Honestly, I disapprove of all these operations ...
I don’t think that one can achieve the result with
the military option”, Barzani told the Hurriyet
newspaper.
Since it was established in 1984, the PKK has been
fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the
constitutional existence of Kurds, to establish a
Kurdish state in the south east of the country, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000
lives.
But now its aim is the creation an autonomous
Kurdish region
and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds who
constitute the greatest minority in Turkey,
numbering more than 20 million. A large Turkey's
Kurdish community openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK rebels.
PKK's demands included releasing PKK detainees,
lifting the ban on education in Kurdish, paving the
way for an autonomous democrat Kurdish system within
Turkey, reducing pressure on the detained PKK leader
Abdullah Öcalan, stopping military action against
the Kurdish party and recomposing the Turkish
constitution.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population
as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural
rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish
language and private Kurdish language courses with
the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish
politicians say the measures fall short of their
expectations.
The PKK is considered as 'terrorist' organization by
Ankara, U.S., the PKK continues to be on the
blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which
overturned a decision
to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its
political wing on the European Union's terror list.
Sources: AFP | Reuters | ekurd.net | Agencies
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