Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RwISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASlN ÖZETi
Turkish Probe May 5,1995
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Turkey, Iraqi Kurds Discuss
Post-Incursion Security
Rafit Gürdilek
ile winding up its cross-border operation
inside northern Iraq, now in its seventh
~ week, Turkey has paced up its efforts to
prevent the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) separatists from returning to their mountain
camps and hideouts across the border after the
withdrawal is complete. For that, Turkey is seeking
the cooperation of the Iraqi Kurds who have set up
their own regional administration in northern
Iraq.
A high-level delegation from the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP) of Massoud BarzanÎ started
a second round of talks in Ankara on
Tuesday to discuss the terms of cooperation,
which, in broad lines, involves
increased KDP military presence
on the border to bar the reentrenchment
of the PKK in the
area,oin return for Turkey's assistance
for the rebuilding of around
300 Iraqi Kurdish villages.
Last month, a team of Turkish
negofiators had an initial meeting
with the KDP leadership in
Salahuddin, northern Iraq, and
later met in Erbil with Jalal
Talabani, the leader of KDP's
main rival, the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK). The KDP and
PUK have been locked in violent
clashes since last May and the
fighting has reportedly claimed
around 2,000 lives. Turkey has
seen the Iraqi Kurds' internal conflict
as a chief factor in the PKK's
supremacy in the border area, but
its efforts to mediate a peaceful
settlement between the two sides
Massoud
have been unsuccessful.
Although PUK does not have a military presence
along the border strip, both Turkey and the KDP
see its participation in the security cooperation
scheme as essential.
But Talabani has poured cold water on Turkey's
hopes of enthusiastic cooperation by his reported
statement that he would not prevent the PKK infiltrations
into Turkey by military means, but would try
to do it diplomatically. To the further chagrin of
Turkish officials, Talabani reportedly told the
French news agency AFP that he also does not
consider the PKK to be a terrorist organization. The
ability of the PKK militants who had surrendered to
the Iraqi Kurds after another incursion by the
Turkish Army in 1992 to rearm themselves and set
up training camps had caused frictions in the relations
between Turkey and the PUK leadership.
Following the conclusion of the second round of
talks with the KDP delegation in Ankara, a team of
PUK envoys is expected to arrive in the second half
of May for similar discussions. But the signs are
that the negotiations with the KDP team is also far
from being a stroll in the rose garden.
The KDP negotiators, headed by Sami
Abdurrahman, a senior member of the KDP political
bureau, and including Nechirwan Barzani, the
nephew of the KDP leader, beside the party's secu.
rity officials, had three sessions of meetings with
Turkish Foreign Ministry officials also attended by
Turkish military and security experts.
A Kurdish source described the talks as being
''very frank and open" which, in diplomatic jargon,
suggests the exchange of recriminations.
Further distance has been covered
since the sides first met in
Salahuddin, but the details of the
accord still have to be worked
out, the source said.
Confirming that the scheme
involved the patrolling of the border
by the KDP peshmerges
(fighters), he said the Iraqi Kurds
were undertaking to do this not
because Turkey wanted it, but
because it was the Kurds' own
task to make their border secure
for their neighbors.
The Kurdish side was insistent,
on the other hand, on official contacts
between Turkey and the
regional Kurdish administration -
which Ankara has been avoiding
so far - and more importantly,
Barzani
reconstruction of about 300 Iraqi
Kurdish villages on the border.
The KDP says the resettlement of the villages will
provide the necessary logistic support to its peshmerge
who would be otherwise exposed and isolated
on the hostile mountains. It says the resettlement
is also important for the Kurdish economy as
the returning villagers will be able to till their land
and reduce the burden on the cities where unemployment
and crime is rampant because of the economic
refugees.
The KDP also requests Turkish cash and assistance
for the building of roads and bridges to facilitate
access to the villages.
The material cost of the package had been tentatively
estimated by the Kurdish sources before as
being between $30 million to $50 million.
The Kurdish negotiators were expected to be
received by Foreign Minister Erdal Inönü, due back
from a short visit to Azerbaijan, before they return
home.•
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