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10 Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basin Ôzeti November 1,2007 By Alissa J. Rubin BAGHDAD: Tensions in northern Iraq between Kurdish guerrillas and neigh¬ boring countries are threatening to dominate Iraq's diplomatic agenda, tak¬ ing attention away from some of the country's most pressing needs, Iraqi of¬ ficials indicated Wednesday. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Ma¬ liki met with Foreign Minister Man¬ ouchehr Mottaki of Iran and asked him to intervene on Iraq's behalf at the meeting of Iraq's neighbors that starts Thursday in Istanbul. "The prime minister asked the Islam¬ ic republic to present their full support to Iraq during the Istanbul meeting and also to participate in solving the border crises between Turkey and the PKK," Maliki's office said in a statement, us¬ ing the abbreviation for the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a rebel group. The PKK is using the mountainous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq as a staging point for raids on Turkish troops just over the border. The group, which has activists among Turkey's Kurdish minority as well as in Iraq, has fought in the past for a separate Kurdish state in Turkey but now appears fo¬ cused on rights for ethnic Kurds living there. Iraq fears border crises overtaking agenda At a news conference Wednesday, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari ofIraq said he had discussed the situation in Kurdistan with his Iranian counterpart and had warned Iran "of the serious consequences" if there were to be a ma¬ jor military incursion by Turkey into Iraq. "It will have consequences for the entire region," he said. Zebari also pointed out that Iraq has many other problems with which it needs help from neighboring countries. "The Istanbul meeting should not be hi¬ jacked by the PKK terrorist activities in Turkey," he said. Nonetheless, it seemed likely that the worry over how to deal with the Kurd¬ ish rebels would be a major concern for many of the players. There are Kurdish minorities in Turkey, Iran and Syria, all of whom will be at the meeting, and the United States, which has close relations with both the Iraqi Kurds and Turkey, is eager not to antagonize either one. Iraqi diplomats say they are worried that after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey meets with Presi¬ dent George W. Bush on Monday that Turkey may take action against the Kurdish guerrillas, a step that could an¬ tagonize the Iraqi Kurds. "They are un¬ der a lot of pressure from the public, so we think they will do something; we hope they will not," a senior Iraqi offi¬ cial said. Iran has been sympathetic to Turkey because it has suffered from raids by Kurds from Iran who have taken refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan and are attacking from there. In an effort to head off a crisis, the United States is helping Turkey gain in¬ telligence on PKK positions in Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday. "The key for any sort of any military re¬ sponse, by the Turks or anybody else, is actionable intelligence," said Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon press secretary. "We are making efforts to help them get actionable intelligence." Erdogan specifically asked the United States to help the Turks take "concrete steps" to reduce the PKK threat. Although Kurdistan is part of Iraq, the central government has little con¬ trol over its policies. The Kurdish gov¬ ernment functions as a semi-autono¬ mous state with its own military force that is only nominally under the control of the Iraqi Defense Ministry. That means that for Iraq to oust the Kurdish guerrillas, they would have to have the support of the Kurdish Regional Gov¬ ernment. Traditionally, Kurds have been reluctant to take on fellow Kurds. V -! ** -i- * .« »- rtt8^f*!K$&Gfc* fP&M&kSSs Darko Bandic/The Associated Press Soldiers on patrol in Sirnak Province, southeastern Turkey, on Wednesday. The United States is helping Turkey gain intelligence on PKK positions across the border in Iraq.
Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basin Ôzeti I ,5;."" y.*." "I November 1,2007 (Bmcap qnwne| Kurdish soldiers in northern Iraq face loyalty test Some wonder if the warriors called to duty are fighting for their country or for Kurds Bv Christine Spolar Tribune foreign correspondentROVlA. Iraq The Kurdish term pesh merga "those who face death" once telegraphed all one needed to know about the fighters born in the shadows of the Kandil Mountains. The Kurds of Iraq fought against Saddam Hus¬ sein for decades, gunning for his ultimate down¬ fall. Their grit was legendary, but, in a new democratic Iraq, their horizons had to change. The heroes of Kurdish history could live on in name but only as the tough pesh merga within an armed, uniformed Iraqi military. This week, the soldiers of northern Iraq, the most disciplined of this country's army, are facing a loyalty test of sorts: They have been called to duty in droves every unit on full alert -- to prepare for a possible fight of enormous signifi¬ cance for Iraq and a region made up of countries with Kurdish minorities.Turkey has threatened to invade Iraq over a deadly running battle with rebel Kurds known as the PKK who agitate for broader Kurdish rights in Turkey. That prospect makes for emotional debate about the mission and its targets that lies before Iraq's Kurdish troops. Are the pesh merga fighting for Iraq or for Kurds? Can they really be expected to battle Kurds who hunger for the same rights they have? Are Turkish warplanes buzzing the border to hit the PKK, or are they aiming, as top Kurdish leaders have speculated, at the Kurdish-run regional government in Iraq -- the Kurds' first- ever democracy and therefore posing a threat to Iraq's future. "PKK is fighting for their rights and their land," said Hasip Adil, the mayor of Rovia who descri¬ bed himself as a provocateur for Kurdish rights during the years of Hussein. "Both of us are Kurdish people, and we need to cooperate. We know they hurt, we know they feel sorrow, but how can this go on? "Adil is a former pesh merga, and at age 35, an elected elder in Rovia, a blink of a highway town where boys have always grown up to be pesh merga. There is a strong sense of nationalism here and in a string of neighboring villages that stretch from the Turkish border but their pride is rooted in Kurdish primacy. Iraq has served as a launchpad for the Kurds. From Irbil north, they are in charge. A population of 5 million to 6 million, they live in a place with a legitimate Kurdish regional government and where Kurdish language and culture are respected, Kurdish flags fly, Kurdish history is taught and Kurdish businesses can thrive. FINANCIAL TIMES Key to stability But they also are bound to wave the Iraqi flag and they know that Iraq's sovereignty is key to stability even if hard bargains still lie ahead. The Kurds have staked a potentially explosive claim to the city of Kirkuk, an oil-rich town, as part of their ancestral land. That debate still flares but, for now, the border risks are para¬ mount. Kurds are openly debating the likelihood of a cross-border attack, this time by an ally of the United States. Rovia, population 1,050, has alrea¬ dy sent dozens of men to the hills just in case. "Every village is contributing," Adil said. "People are worried that this will start small and quickly spread. It could get very bad, very quickly."It is difficult for some families to sort through what makes for legitimate Kurd demands. One man said he had cousins fighting for both Iraq and rebel Kurdish units. Another man, Mehmet Su¬ leiman, said camps of PKK supporters, also known as the Kurdistan Workers' Party, were helping the rebels and there was a Kurdish res¬ ponsibility to recognize their demand for equal rights in Turkey "The PKK has the right to do this," Suleiman said. "Turkey is only targeting Kurdish existence and this democracy too. PKK is only Turkey's excuse. "Regional President Massoud Barzani raised the same complaint, that PKK was a convenient excuse for Turkey, in an interview with Al-Arabiya television. "The main aim is to prevent the Kurdish regional development," he said last week about Turkish threats for incur¬ sions and economic embargoes. Barzani, a former pesh merga leader and head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, is a familiar figure to Turkish Kurds and has in the past few years established a political presence in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.Barzani's crossborder dealings in what some see as a bid to be a Kurdish regional leader -- have been eyed suspiciously by Ankara. National media outlets, based in Istanbul, are particularly tough on Bar¬ zani. In the past few weeks, the media have persistently derided a claim by Barzani and other Kurdish officials that they can't control the PKK. It is widely known that official contact with the PKK is being made, by phone, in Irbil, Iraq's Kurdish government center. Throughout the week, reporters have been trooping in and out of PKK encampments in Iraq. The U.S. govern By Steve Negus. Iraq Correspondent November 1 2007 Iraq's foreign minister said his country would reinforce its border with Turkey to prevent Kurdish rebels from receiving supplies, in one of the first concrete proposals made by Baghdad aimed at forestalling a Turkish military incursion. Hoshyar Zebari, who is himself Kurdish, said yesterday his govern¬ ment would set up checkpoints along the border with Turkey to prevent ment, a longtime ally of the Kurds from the days of Hussein, has made public its demands for Kurdish authorities to cut off convenient supply lines for the rebels.As rebels and soldiers skir¬ mish across the border, the Turkish public has turned out in anger, protesting the rebels and Iraq's highest-profile Kurds for protecting them. Nationalism has spiraled in Turkey in the course of their outrage: Five million flags and banners were sold in five days, according to news re¬ ports. Barzani's face is one of those hoisted on pla¬ cards. On Turkish Web sites and television talk shows, he is regularly derided as a "traitorterrorist."One columnist in the national daily Hurriyet went so far as to call for his "elimina¬ tion." Barzani, in an interview published Monday in Milliyet, another daily, protested that no one should be calling for violence toward him or for violence to jump the mountains between Iraq and Turkey. "Several times, I have said that PKK should disarm," said Barzani, who has also rebuffed questions about how the PKK is able to exist at all. "The time of weapons and violence has passed. "Questions about reports But one Turkish major, who has pursued missions along the border in the past and requested ano¬ nymity because he was not authorized to speak about the current crisis, said media reports about the extent of the fighting by Turkish troops in border regions have been sensationalized. It is impossible to know how far troops are pursuing PKK because of military restrictions. But the pace of the pursuit could change at the end of this week when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joins foreign ministers for a meeting of Iraq's neighbors in Istanbul, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan travels Nov. 5 to meet with President Bush to urge more U.S. and Kurdish efforts to control the PKK.Then, the Turkish officer said, the Turkish military could be ordered into broader battles in the cliffs of Kandil, and distinguishing between Kurdish fighters will be difficult. "They wear similar uniforms," he said of the Kurdish army and the PKK. "We think they help each other on those mountains they go back and forth. There is supposed to be a difference but, in fact, there isn't."At least that's what it looks like to us." Iraq plans to set up checkpoints on Turkey border food, fuel and supplies from reaching the Kurdistan Workers party, or PKK, which has recently staged a number of deadly military. attacks on the Turkish Turkey's parliament voted earlier in October to authorise armed incur¬ sions against PKK bases inside territory controlled by northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which Washing ton fears could destabilise the only large secure part of the country. Turkey has launched airstrikes against alleged PKK targets but has held off from a large ground incursion, which could bring it into conflict with the KRG's peshmerga security for¬ ces. The PKK maintains several enclaves inside Iraq, including some lightly garrisoned mountain ranges near the Turkish border and a much larger base relatively far from Turkish territory, near Mount Qandil along the border with Iran. An embargo that cut off the PKK's cross-border supply routes, but did not end its presence within northern Iraq, might not satisfy Ankara's de¬ mands. The KRG says it has no love for the PKK, but does not want to incur 11
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