Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
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Revue <strong>de</strong> Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro <strong>de</strong> la Prensa-Basin Ôzeti<br />
i the Australian November 02, 2007 US helps Turkey to isolate rebels<br />
Martin Chulov, Middle East correspon<strong>de</strong>nt I<br />
THE US claimed yesterday to have <strong>de</strong>ployed military resources from elsewhere in Iraq to help Turkish forces pinpoint Kurd¬<br />
ish separatists in the north.<br />
The public claim to have secretly simultaneously," Deputy Prime Minis¬ Kurdish administration, but has surveillance information to the Tur¬<br />
pitched in to the counter- ter Cemil Cicek said after a cabinet accused both it <strong>and</strong> the US of not kish military. PKK rebels operate<br />
insurgency campaign is a fresh bid to meeting. "The targets of these mea¬ doing enough to cut off supply lines to mainly from the rugged frontier of<br />
convince the Turkish Government not sures are the terrorist organisation the PKK.<br />
the Q<strong>and</strong>il mountains, along a 300km<br />
to inva<strong>de</strong> northern Iraq. US Secretary<br />
of State Condoleezza Rice was due in<br />
the Turkish capital, Ankara, last<br />
night as part of a high-stakes bid to<br />
stop an invasion as fears continue to<br />
mount about a new battlefront ope¬<br />
ning in war-ravaged Iraq.<br />
<strong>and</strong> those groups which are suppor¬<br />
ting, aiding <strong>and</strong> abetting it."<br />
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip<br />
Erdogan has suggested Massoud<br />
Barzani, the lea<strong>de</strong>r of Iraq's semiautonomous<br />
Kurdish region, is assis¬<br />
ting the Turkish Kurd rebels.<br />
The central Iraqi Government has<br />
said it will consi<strong>de</strong>r rounding up PKK<br />
lea<strong>de</strong>rs <strong>and</strong> h<strong>and</strong>ing them over to<br />
Turkey if Ankara refrains from inva¬<br />
ding. However, Turkey has so far<br />
refused diplomatic overtures from<br />
Baghdad <strong>and</strong> Washington, claiming<br />
bor<strong>de</strong>r between Iraq <strong>and</strong> southeastern<br />
Turkey. "We are assisting the Turks<br />
in their efforts to combat the PKK by<br />
supplying them with intelligence, lots<br />
of intelligence," Defence Department<br />
press secretary Geoff Morrell said in<br />
Washington.<br />
Turkey said this week it would im¬<br />
pose economic measures on the<br />
rebels of the Kurdish Workers Party<br />
<strong>and</strong> groups that support it in a move<br />
"He is in a position of aiding <strong>and</strong><br />
abetting the terrorist organisation in<br />
that region," Turkey's Hurriyet news¬<br />
they are both offering too little too<br />
late.<br />
The US announcement of military co¬<br />
He said 10 members of the PKK -<br />
which the US consi<strong>de</strong>rs a terrorist<br />
organisation - are in a US "most<br />
wanted" database.<br />
wi<strong>de</strong>ly interpreted as sanctions<br />
against the Kurdish administration,<br />
which runs northern Iraq largely<br />
autonomously from Baghdad.<br />
"Military, political, diplomatic <strong>and</strong><br />
economic measures are being taken<br />
TIME<br />
paper quoted Mr Erdogan as saying.<br />
Close to 70 per cent of all imports<br />
into the Iraqi Kurdish areas travel<br />
through Turkish airspace, giving<br />
Ankara significant leverage over the<br />
Kurdish authorities. Turkey says its<br />
military is not moving against the<br />
operation comes a week after US<br />
comm<strong>and</strong>ers in Iraq had announced<br />
their forces there had done "absolute¬<br />
ly nothing" in the north of the country<br />
<strong>and</strong> had no plans to change strategy.<br />
The US now says it is flying spy planes<br />
over the bor<strong>de</strong>r area <strong>and</strong> passing on<br />
By Andrew Lee Butters /Salahaddin Nov. Nov. 02, 2007<br />
The executive compound of Massoud Barzani,<br />
the presi<strong>de</strong>nt of Iraq's autonomous Kurdis¬<br />
tan Regional Government, sits high on a ridge<br />
along the northern edge of the Mesopotamian<br />
plain, on a spot that was once a summer resort<br />
un<strong>de</strong>r the former regime. With its eagle's-nest<br />
views, helipad getaway <strong>and</strong> fierce peshmerga<br />
guards, the hilltop redoubt feels like the lair of a<br />
James Bond villain which is exactly how many<br />
Turks think of Barzani.<br />
In the uproar over the killings of Turkish sol¬<br />
diers by the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) a<br />
rebel group of Turkish Kurds fighting the Tur¬<br />
kish state the Turkish media has portrayed<br />
Barzani as a warlord gone wild. The Turks ac¬<br />
cuse him of supporting the PKK, which main¬<br />
tains sanctuaries in the mountains of Barzani's<br />
domain in northern Iraq, in or<strong>de</strong>r to further his<br />
own Kurdish nationalist agenda. U.S. officials<br />
have pressed Barzani <strong>and</strong> the Kurdish lea<strong>de</strong>rship<br />
to take action against the PKK, at least to stem<br />
the flow of people <strong>and</strong> supplies to their moun¬<br />
tain camps, <strong>and</strong> to arrest PKK lea<strong>de</strong>rs based in<br />
Erbil, Barzani's regional capital. Some American<br />
commentators have even won<strong>de</strong>red if Barzani is<br />
using the PKK as a playing card to be tra<strong>de</strong>d<br />
away at some future date in exchange for Tur¬<br />
kish recognition of in<strong>de</strong>pen<strong>de</strong>nce for Iraqi Kur¬<br />
distan.<br />
But in a recent interview with TIME <strong>and</strong> other<br />
foreign media, Barzani remained adamant that<br />
he wouldn't direct Kurdish security forces to act<br />
against the PKK, nor would he be intimidated by<br />
possible Turkish military incursions into Nor¬<br />
thern Iraq.<br />
"I am not an enemy of Turkey; I am a friend of<br />
the Turkish people," he says. "But I do not accept<br />
the language of threatening <strong>and</strong> blackmailing<br />
from the government of Turkey."<br />
"We have given them more <strong>and</strong> more<br />
intelligence as a result of the recent<br />
concerns ... There has been an in¬<br />
creased level of intelligence sharing,"<br />
Mr Morrell said.<br />
Kurd Lea<strong>de</strong>r Defies Turkish Threats<br />
Barzani <strong>and</strong> the Kurdish lea¬<br />
<strong>de</strong>rship claim they are unable to<br />
eject the PKK from Iraq, <strong>and</strong><br />
that doing so is not their respon¬<br />
sibility, anyway. The PKK ma<strong>de</strong><br />
its way into these mountains<br />
during the early 1990s, when the<br />
no-flight zone imposed by the<br />
U.S. against Saddam Hussein's<br />
air force created a power va¬<br />
cuum. And although Iraqi Kur¬<br />
dish peshmerga cooperated with<br />
some of the many Turkish mili¬<br />
tary operations against the PKK<br />
during that period, the bloody<br />
experience has left them unwil¬<br />
ling to repeat the same mistakes.<br />
"This is not a problem that can<br />
be solved by force," says Barzani,<br />
himself a former guerrilla comm<strong>and</strong>er. "[The<br />
Turks] have tried military operations in the last<br />
23 years. Now, it's time for the Turkish people to<br />
ask their military what they did in the last 23<br />
years, <strong>and</strong> why they didn't solve it."<br />
Barzani believes that what's nee<strong>de</strong>d instead is a<br />
political solution to the conflict between Turkey<br />
<strong>and</strong> the PKK. "If they adopt a peaceful approach,<br />
we are ready to help as much as we can," he says.<br />
"If Turkey came up with a peaceful initiative <strong>and</strong><br />
the PKK rejects that, then all the Kurdistanis will<br />
take up a position against the PKK."<br />
Turkey, however, treats the PKK simply as a<br />
problem of terrorism. (The U.S. has also <strong>de</strong>si¬<br />
gnated the organization as a terrorist group.)<br />
Barzani claims that the Turks' unwillingness to<br />
consi<strong>de</strong>r anything but force against the PKK is a<br />
sign that Turkey's agenda goes beyond resolving<br />
the situation at h<strong>and</strong>. "Honestly, I am about to<br />
be convinced that the PKK is only an excuse <strong>and</strong><br />
that part of the real target is the Kurdistan re<br />
gion itself," he says. The other target, he sug¬<br />
gests, is the mo<strong>de</strong>rate Islamists of Turkey's<br />
ruling AK party, which is opposed by Turkey's<br />
fiercely secularist generals. "This is part of their<br />
internal disputes <strong>and</strong> problems," adds Barzani.<br />
The Iraqi Kurdish lea<strong>de</strong>r talks tough in the face<br />
of threatened Turkish intervention. "If the Kur¬<br />
dish question is not solved, there will not be<br />
security or stability in this region," he said. "If<br />
there is an invasion it means war. If they inva<strong>de</strong><br />
<strong>and</strong> enter the Iraqi Kurdistan region <strong>and</strong> they<br />
attack us, of course we have to <strong>de</strong>fend ourselves.<br />
If they attack our people, our interests, our<br />
territories, then there will be no limit."<br />
Even as Turkey ratchets up its threats <strong>and</strong> Was¬<br />
hington scrambles to avert a showdown between<br />
two of its key regional allies by pressing for more<br />
action on the Iraqi si<strong>de</strong>, Massoud Barzani is<br />
showing no signs of backing down.<br />
17