IRAQ: Turkey targets Iraqi Kurds' stability, not just the PKK say residents of Northern Iraqi town

As diplomatic meetings between Turkey and Iraq come to nothing, residents in a northern Iraq town say the Turkish government is afraid of a Kurdish sovereign state being established. Turkish military planes scoured the Iraqi border for Kurdish rebel camps on Saturday (October 27), army sources said, after diplomatic talks in Ankara to avert a major cross-border operation into northern Iraq failed. Turkish-Iraqi talks collapsed late on Friday (October 26) after Ankara rejected a series of proposals by Iraqi Defence Minister General Abdel Qader Jassim to tackle Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq as insufficient. Officials told Reuters that no further talks were planned and the Iraqi delegation, which aimed to dissuade NATO member Turkey from launching a major incursion against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas, was leaving on Saturday. Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops, backed by fighter jets, helicopter gunships, tanks, and mortars, on the frontier before a possible offensive against about 3,000 PKK rebels using Iraq as a base from which to carry out deadly attacks in Turkey. The United States, which was also represented at the talks, opposes a major incursion, fearing it could destabilise Iraq's relatively peaceful north and potentially the wider region. The PKK took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict. In recent years the party has pushed for greater cultural and political rights. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has played down comments by Turkey's top general that the military was waiting for Erdogan to meet U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on Nov. 5 before launching a major incursion. General Yasar Buyukanit was quoted by Turkish media on Friday as saying the meeting was very important and the military would hold off until Erdogan returned before a potential move. Senior Turkish diplomats say Erdogan has given Washington and Baghdad a limited time to show concrete results or steps to be taken against the PKK. The meeting in Washington will be the last chance, they told Reuters. Any major offensive, expected to involve ground and air forces, would first have to be approved by the government. But under growing public pressure, Erdogan has repeatedly said Turkey will not tolerate any more attacks from the PKK, which has killed about 40 people in the last month. Army sources told Reuters on Saturday that military planes were running reconnaissance trips along the mountainous border to take photographs of PKK camps in northern Iraq. Helicopters were patrolling villages and soldiers sweeping for mines. In the southeastern city of Sirnak on Saturday about 1,000 people demonstrated against the PKK, which in its latest major attack killed 12 soldiers and said it took eight prisoner. Security was tight, with sharpshooters on rooftops and village guard militiamen present. "For every 12 martyrs, 12,000 more Turkish martyrs are born," chanted protesters, who came from all over the province. The military has already carried out as many as 24 limited operations into northern Iraq against the PKK but no major land incursion, Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said on Friday. Turkish helicopter gunships and F-16 jets have attacked PKK positions inside Iraq in recent days. Speaking in the town of Dahouk in northern Iraq, residents said that Turkey was trying to curb Kurds in general not just the PKK. "The Turkish government is afraid of the Kurds and afraid that they may establish their independent state," said Kurdish resident Mehdi, "Turkey is always looking for pretexts to refuse the Iraqi conditions. Therefore, whatever the Iraqi government does, Turkey will not accept" he added, speaking to Reuters outside a local tea shop. International analysts question whether a major military offensive into northern Iraq would be successful, as past ones have failed to dislodge the PKK, whose members are also in Turkey. Speaking to Reuters at her home in Dahouk, Asia Ahmed, a member of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said that Turkey's target was Kurds, not just the PKK. "The PKK is the said target of the issue, but in the long run the main target is Kurdistan's experience. They do not want to see a sovereign state in Iraq's Kurdistan." Ankara had given Iraq a list of leading PKK members based in northern Iraq and demanded that Baghdad hand them over and shut down their numerous camps. But the central Iraqi government has little control over semi-autonomous Kurdish northern Iraq, which is run by the KRG. "I want to ask this question: Do we have the PKK leaders in our hands to hand them over to Turkey? Turkey with all its power and army cannot arrest their (PKK) members, so how can the government of Kurdistan region do it!" Ahmed said to Reuters. "The PKK were the main cause behind the death of many young people of Kurdistan region, whether in battlefronts or by the mines they plant in Kurdistan, so how can we help them" she added. The KRG, run by Masoud Barzani, says it has no control over the PKK, considered a terrorist organisation in the United States, Turkey and the European Union. Barzani has vowed to fight any Turkish incursion

ITN Source | October 28, 2007

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