Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris

66
ERBIL
Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basin Ùzeti
Iraqi Kurdistan
Iraq's Kurdish leader
in a bind
What can Masoud Barzani, the Iraqi Kurds' leader, actually do?
IRAQ'S Kurdish leaders are desperate to with its leaders for stoking the crisis. But he
forestall-or at least to minimise-TUr- refuses to send his own Peshmerga fighters
key's threatened assault against the guer¬ to drive the pkk out of its strongholds; they
rillas of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (pkk) tried and failed to do that several times in
who have been attacking the Turkish army the 1990s, sometimes in co-operation with
in Turkey while using the rugged moun¬ the TUrks, and got a bloody nose. The days
tains of northern Iraq as a haven. In the of Kurd fighting Kurd are over, says Mr Bar¬
past week, the regional government of zani, mindful of the civil war among Iraqi
Iraqi Kurdistan, under the presidency of Kurds in the 1990s. Instead, he suggests
Masoud Barzani, has used its good offices sending a multinational force into the re¬
to facilitate the release of eight Turkish sol¬ gion to corral the pkk. It is unclear which
diers whom the pkk had recently captured countries would contribute to such a force.
in Turkey. But the Turks say that Mr Barzani Mr Barzani anyway rejects the charge
and his American allies must do more if that the attacks on Turkish troops have
Turkey is to put off a full-scale attack. been launched from Iraq, claiming that Re¬
Exactly what? Mr Barzani says he is cep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minis¬
ready to help solve the pkk problem- ter, just before Turkey's general election in
peacefully. He insists that he is a friend of the summer, said himself that there were
TUrkey and the Turks but will not co-oper¬ 5,000-odd pkk fighters inside Turkey com¬
ate "under threats and blackmail". He has pared with only 500 or so over the border
repeated calls for the pkk to stick to its uni¬ in northern Iraq. Mr Barzani also points
lateral ceasefire (proclaimed a year ago) out that the heaviest fighting between the
and not to use its bases in the remote pkk and Turkish troops has been in Tunceli
mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan to launch at¬ province, more than 100 miles (161km)
tacks' across the border into Turkey (see west of Turkey's border with Iraq.
map on next page). Mr Barzani's govern¬ Mr Barzani's nephew Nechirvan, the re¬
ment has closed the offices of the Kurdis¬ gion's prime minister, wrote in the Wash¬
tan Democratic Solution Party, which ington Post this week: "We have con¬
praises the pkk, in Iraqi Kurdistan's two demned and will continue.to condemn the
biggest towns, Erbil, its capital, and Sulay- pkk for its unwarranted attacks in TUrkey.
maniyah. Mr Barzani also says that check¬ We insist that its members lay down their
points between the main part of his region arms immediately. We do not allow them
and the pkk zone have been revived, to to operate freely, contrary to what some
squeeze the guerrillas by staunching the have suggested." Both Barzanis, president
flow of supplies.
and prime minister, said the Turks and the
There is no love lost between Mr Bar¬ pkk must negotiate rather than fight. The
zani and the pkk. He is privately furious uncle noted that Turkey had tried for 23
years to crush the pkk militarily-in vain.
In any event, the numbers of pkk guer¬
rillas, in or out of TUrkey, are disputed. In a
recent interview, Osman Ocalan, brother
of the pick's leader Abdullah Ocalan, who
is injail on the island ofImrali in the Sea of
Marmara, said there were 2,750 pkk guer¬
rillas in TUrkey, 2,500 in Iraq's borderlands
and 1,500 in Iran. The last-mentioned lot
belong to the Party of Free Life of Kurdis¬
tan, better known as pjak, generally reck¬
oned to be the pkk's Iranian Kurdish
branch. Many pkk guerrillas are thought
to have moved across the border into Iran,
which the Turks are unlikely to encroach
upon. Some independent watchers put the
pkk numbers in Iraq at fewer than 500.
The pick says it wants to negotiate and
that its violence is in response to Turkish
attacks-a claim that enrages the Turks;
35,000-plus people in Turkey (most of
Eyeing the Turks
them Kurds) have been killed since the pkk
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began fighting in the 1980s. The pkk also
insists that, unlike its cousins in Iraq and
Iran, it no longer seeks autonomy or feder¬
alism, but just wants Kurdish cultural and
political rights enshrined in Turkey's con¬
stitution. It also wants Mr Ocalan freed
and better conditions while he is in prison.
Mr Barzani's mollifying gestures have
cut little ice in TUrkey, where he is widely
cast as a villain in the thick of a plot to dis¬
member Turkey by egging on the pkk.
Nationalist Turkish commentators call him
"insolent" and "treacherous". Turkish
weapons should be "turned on Barzani,"
says the editor of Hurrùj et, one of Turkey's
biggest daily newspapers. Mr Erdogan has
joined the fray, accusing Mr Barzani of aid¬
ing and abetting the pkk.
Please don't throttle us
The Kurdish Iraqis are already suffering
from de facto economic sanctions im¬
posed by TUrkey, which has been their
economic lifeline. The Turks are threaten¬
ing to close the one border crossing for
heavy lorries, through which vital sup¬
plies of food and equipment reach Iraqi
Kurdistan. Flights between Istanbul and
Erbil, the Kurds' capital, have been sus¬
pended. There has been talk of shutting off
electricity from TUrkey, which would hurt
the flourishing city of Dohuk. Several Turk¬
ish companies that have been doing good
business in Iraqi Kurdistan (such as buildingErbil's
airport) have packed up and-for
the time being-gone. The Barzanis sorely
need them back. But how?
This week George Bush welcomed Mr
Erdogan to the White House and assured
him that the United States deems the pkk a
terrorist group and is as keen as TUrkey to
squelch it. The administration apparently
endorsed limited Turkish military action
against the guerrillas and has offered to
give as much intelligence as it can so that
the Turks can identify pkk targets. But it
has begged the TUrks to refrain from a big¬
ger-scale attack that could drag the Iraqi
Kurds into the fray-and destabilise the
only bit of Iraq that has been peaceful and
increasingly prosperous. So far, Mr Erdo¬
gan and his generals have held back. But
no one is sure they will do so for long.