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

C
REVUE DE PRESSE~PRESS REVIEW~BERHEVOKAÇAPÊ~RIVISTA STAMPA~DENTRO DE LA PRENSA~BASIN ÖZETi
nuclear weapon than had been supposed,"
risI5
• . •.
deepens
the Military Balance said,
On a more 0 timistic note, the IISS said .
the treaty to reduce ConventionaJFôrces' in
Europe, signed by members of NATO and
the former Warsaw Pact, had got off to a
good start. Sixteen months after the treaty. .
came into force, most countries were on, .
course to meet interim targets for scrapping regIOn was desperate and most. village
ming attacks on mass settlements" ana cited âlleged
troop attacks on Yüksekova (HakkariLAltmo-
surplus weapons and its inspectio~s, proces.s raids w:re conducted by secun.ty forhad
been a success. "After some Imtlal sus- c~s. Saklk told the TON that hIs. own
va (Mus), DogubeyaZlt and Fizan (Bitlis) as proof
picion, both inspectors and inspe,cted hav.e vtllage,. Zengo,k an~ a nearby Village
to this. It called on everyone to show common sen"
âiscovered that inspections are an Important where his relatives lived, Ke~an, were completely se against a provocation and said that military solutions
applied to the Kurdish problem were oackfi.
confidence-building measure that have burned down. Turkey had earlier changed Zengok's
led to a much improved understanding of name to Yürelik and Keran to Yamaç as part of a rina.
each other's problems and military philoso- .l1!ajor drive to fo~ce Turkish names on the Kurphy;"
the think-tank said.
dish-populated ,regIOn..
that for some time there was pressure on the family
S'aklk's brother Faruk told the TON in Ankara
A new UN register of conventional amfs, . Witnesses said that In the early hours o~Monday and that a month ago, their hotel in Mu~, named af.
which aims to record the transfer of arms mght, they had seen tens of armoured vehlçles mobetween
countries, had also made a promi$- ving in from the DiyarbakIr roa? toward. the area authon lIes wltnout any apparent reason.
ter th~i~ vill~~e, had been closed down by local
ing start during its first year of operation, 1t where Zengök and Keran are situated. Saklk, an Former People's Labor Party (HEP) chairman
said.
MP for the DEP, which lost another parliamentari-
and QEP deputy, Ahmet Türk, said about 60 exe.
Terri'ying claim:
Troops torch DEP
deputy.s villages
• MP claims villagers disappear after
taken to woods at gunpoint
• Democracy Party fears massacre,
appeals for end to military solution
Turkish Duil)' Ne ....s
ANKARA-
Government troops armed
with heavy weapons and transported in
armored vehicles Monday night raided
two villages in the southeastern province
of Mus and set them aflame on Tuesday
mornin~ provincial Democracy
Party (DEP) ueputy SlIT!SakIk said.
Saklk, in a telephone interview with
the TON from Mu~, said witnesses had
seen all of the villagers, including
women and children, forced into a nearby
foreq âl gunpnint
"Almost 100 houses have been bur.
ned down. We have no news from the
villagers who are all relatives of mine,
and we fear for their lives," SakIk said
Tuesdayafternoon.
DEP Van deputy and the party's par.
liamentarian spokesman Remzi Kartal
expressed fear that the incidents could
turn into a massacre.
Monday night, a parliamentarian
from the Junior coalition partner Social
Democrat People's Party (SHP) said on
a popular television news program thaI
Turkish troops were burning down and
evacuating Kurdish villages in the Southeast.
SHP Hakkari Deputy E~at Canan,
also a member of the Parliament
investigative commission on the S?utheast,
told the 32. Gün (32nd Day) In a
live interview that the situation in the
an to assassination last month, said he was scheduled
to be at Zengok when the military raid took
. place. "I had made plans and told friends over the
telephone that I would spend the night at the village.
All of our telephones are tapped," Saklk said.
He added that he believed the raid targeted him
and his family. The DEP deputy said that at the last
moment, he had decided not to travel by night after
a!so spotting "about200 armored vehicles approaching
the area on the Bingöl and DiyarbakIr roads."
He said, "The [Mu~] governor told us thatthe raid
had not been conducted by security forces from
his province. We are inclined to believe him." The
convoy. of vehicles, he noted, included armored
personnel carriers and military Reo trucks. On Tuesday,
several Mu~ residents were detained by troops
while approaching Zengok. Saklk said they
had returnecf to the city and were willing to testify
they had seen a heavy blanket of smoke rising
from the flames. One villager claimed he had seen
the soldiers torching the houses earlier. .
The MP explained there were about 60 houses in
Zengok and 40 more in Keran. "Troops are not allowmg
me to go there. I am here and tbey are listening
to my telephones. I know saying this is dangerous
but I am openly saying thiS. What lies behind
this incident is not only a village being burned
down but an attack on my whole family," Sak.Jksaid.'
..
Kartal said in Ankara, meanwhile, that the DEP
wa~ concerned a massacre could take place. The
statement said the party had "noted signs of upcocutives
of their pro-Kurdish party, which insists on
a peaceful solutIon to the Kurdish problem, had been
killed over the pasttwo years.
Deputy Mehmet Sincar was assassinated last
month while another parliamentarian, Nizamettin
Toguç, was wounded. DEP Diyarbakir Deputy
Leyla Zana, who was threatened with death by a
local military officer last year, was nearly killed in
a bomb attack. "Their aim is to force us off the legal
platform and underground," Türk said.
Until Tuesday evening, the TDN could get no official
statement related to the village raids but contacted
Interior Minister Mehmet Gazioglu in Parliament
to bring the incident tn hi, attention.
Gazioglu said this was the first time he had heard
of the incident but promised to look into the
claim as soon as possible.
Another senior ministry official immediately
blamed the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) for "disguising itself as soldiers and conducting
the raid."
One of Sak.Jk'sbrothers, ~emdin Sak.Jk,is a local
. commander of PKK forces in the region. The ministry
official failed to explain how armored vehicles
had been used in theattack -- if it was conducted
by the PKK. . .
Turkey's human rights activists say more than
750 villages have been burned down by troops in
the troubled region. In August, Turkish Daily
News editors submitted two reports on the issue to
President Süleymàn Demirel, warning that the
practice was recruiting villagers for the guerillas.
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