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 />
REUTERS j<br />
November 4. 2007 Reuters - Bv Khaled Yacoub Owels<br />
DAMASUCUS - Security forces killed a Kurdish youth <strong>and</strong> woun<strong>de</strong>d four<br />
other people in northeastern Syria while breaking up a protest against a<br />
possible Turkish incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan, witnesses <strong>and</strong> Kurdish<br />
activists said on Sunday.<br />
The inci<strong>de</strong>nt revived the issue of longst<strong>and</strong>ing Kurdish grievances in<br />
tightly controlled Syria <strong>and</strong> evoked painful memories of <strong>de</strong>monstrations<br />
<strong>and</strong> riots a few years ago that killed 30 people.<br />
Witnesses said Issa Khalil, 24, was among a group of 200 Kurds who<br />
gathered in the city of Qamishli on Friday in support of their brethren<br />
across the bor<strong>de</strong>r in Iraq.<br />
The city was the scene of anti-government riots in 2004 that spread to<br />
Kurdish areas across Syria. Mâchai Jammo, a Kurdish activist, told Reu¬<br />
ters police fired bullets <strong>and</strong> teargas to break up the <strong>de</strong>monstrations. Pro¬<br />
testers respon<strong>de</strong>d by throwing stones.<br />
"Syria wants to send a message of support to Turkey. But its hostility to<br />
the Kurdish presence in the region risks a repeat of the 2004 anger on a<br />
larger scale," said Jammo, an official in the Kurdish Future Movement,<br />
which advocates <strong>de</strong>mocracy <strong>and</strong> equal rights for Syria's one million Kur¬<br />
dish minority.<br />
Thous<strong>and</strong>s of Kurds turned out for Khalil's funeral in Qamishly on Satur¬<br />
day. Witnesses said security forces surroun<strong>de</strong>d the funeral procession but<br />
did not interfere.<br />
"We could be looking at more funerals, which is keeping the situation<br />
tense. Two of the four with wounds are in serious condition," a resi<strong>de</strong>nt of<br />
the city said.There was no comment from the Syrian authorities. Qamishly<br />
is heavily policed <strong>and</strong> news from the city is slow to filter out.<br />
Kurd killed in north Syria protest<br />
Police in the northern town of Aleppo prevented an anti-Turkish <strong>de</strong>mons¬<br />
tration last week but there were no casualties, human right activists said.<br />
TIES<br />
Turkey has amassed around 100,000 soldiers on its bor<strong>de</strong>r with Iraqi<br />
Kurdistan for a possible attack on PKK separatists who have launched<br />
strikes against Turkish forces. Baghdad has sought to calm Turkey, saying<br />
it is prepared to pursue guerrilla lea<strong>de</strong>rs responsible for raids into Turkey<br />
to avert an invasion.<br />
Syrian Presi<strong>de</strong>nt Bashar al-Assad expressed support for Turkey's policy<br />
toward the PKK on a visit to Ankara last month, although <strong>Information</strong><br />
Minister Mohsen Bilal later said Assad did not back a Turkish attack on<br />
Iraq.<br />
Relations between Ankara <strong>and</strong> Damascus improved sharply in recent<br />
years as Kurdish power has risen in Iraq. In an interview with al-Jazeera<br />
television, Kurdish lea<strong>de</strong>r Masoud Barzani <strong>de</strong>scribed Syria's position<br />
toward Iraqi Kurdistan as "negative".<br />
Syria's overtures toward Turkey have not gone down well with Syria's own<br />
Kurdish minority which inclu<strong>de</strong>s thous<strong>and</strong>s of disenfranchised Kurds<br />
without passports or official documents to own property or use govern¬<br />
ment services.<br />
Un<strong>de</strong>r Turkish pressure, Syria has cracked down on the PKK. A security<br />
court h<strong>and</strong>ed several PKK members long sentences last year in trials<br />
criticised by human rights groups as illegitimate.<br />
Syria banned the PKK after a confrontation with Turkey in 1 998 over the<br />
group's activities. The two countries came close to a military conflict be¬<br />
fore Damascus met Turkey's request to expel PKK lea<strong>de</strong>r Abdullah Oca¬<br />
lan, who was later arrested <strong>and</strong> jailed by Turkey.<br />
Political dance of Turkish troops' release<br />
DOIS NEWS 5 November 2007 Bv Jim Muir BBC News, Baghdad<br />
The manner in which the eight Turkish soldiers captured by the Kurdish PKK rebels were relea¬<br />
sed on Sunday says much about the complex politics surrounding the current bor<strong>de</strong>r crisis<br />
between Turkey <strong>and</strong> northern Iraq.<br />
In an obviously pre-arranged scenario,<br />
the eight men were marched down from<br />
the remote bor<strong>de</strong>r mountains where they<br />
had been held by the PKK, to a meeting<br />
point where a reception <strong>de</strong>legation was<br />
waiting for them.<br />
There, they were formally signed over into<br />
the care of the Kurdistan Regional Go¬<br />
vernment (KRG), the administration that<br />
runs the autonomous region of Iraqi Kur¬<br />
distan un<strong>de</strong>r a fe<strong>de</strong>ral arrangement with<br />
Baghdad.<br />
The KRG team was carefully balanced<br />
between the two main parties that domi¬<br />
nate Iraqi Kurdish politics, the Kurdistan<br />
Democratic Party (KDP) of Massoud Bar¬<br />
zani, who is presi<strong>de</strong>nt of Iraqi Kurdistan,<br />
<strong>and</strong> the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK),<br />
led by Jalal Talabani, who is presi<strong>de</strong>nt of<br />
Iraq.<br />
That was a signal that both parties agreed<br />
to share either the blame or the credit for<br />
acting as midwives to the release.<br />
Also present at the initial h<strong>and</strong>over in the<br />
mountains were three Kurdish members of<br />
the Turkish parliament who had crossed<br />
the bor<strong>de</strong>r to try to help bring about the<br />
release of the soldiers.<br />
The three, who are among the 20 MPs of<br />
the Democratic Society Party, are now<br />
being accused by some senior government<br />
figures in Ankara of complicity with the<br />
PKK.<br />
Carefully choreographed<br />
From the mountains, the freed soldiers<br />
were taken in a convoy of KRG vehicles to<br />
the regional capital, Erbil.<br />
There, they were h<strong>and</strong>ed into the custody<br />
of an Iraqi government <strong>de</strong>legation hea<strong>de</strong>d<br />
by Defence Minister Abdul Qa<strong>de</strong>r al-<br />
Obeidi.<br />
Also present was the Comm<strong>and</strong>er of the<br />
Multinational Forces in Iraq, Gen David<br />
Petraeus.<br />
Both men then joined the liberated Turks<br />
on a US military aircraft that flew them,<br />
not home to Turkey, but to a Turkishcontrolled<br />
airstrip at Bamarni, insi<strong>de</strong><br />
northern Iraq - one of several littlepublicised<br />
bases the Turks have maintai¬<br />
ned there since the 1990s.<br />
At Bamarni, the soldiers were finally si¬<br />
gned over to the Turkish military <strong>and</strong> put<br />
on a Turkish military flight home, as Anka¬<br />
ra had insisted.<br />
According to several Kurdish <strong>and</strong> Iraqi<br />
accounts, their release had been agreed in<br />
principle by the PKK many days before,<br />
<strong>and</strong> had been heral<strong>de</strong>d by many optimistic<br />
statements from officials in the know.<br />
But the modalities clearly took some ar¬<br />
ranging. The men could simply have been<br />
set loose near one of the Turkish bases, or<br />
sent on foot across the bor<strong>de</strong>r.<br />
The way it eventually happened was much<br />
more politically choreographed.<br />
Iraqi involvement<br />
From the outset, Ankara had refused to<br />
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