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

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Basm Ozeti
According to Kandasoglu, these people have no income as there are insufficient job opportunities in the city. "If the village
guards system would be lifted, then people can freely return to their villages and homes. Village guards have guns and
all the power. They shot people to death and then claimed that these people didn't obey the rules," Kandasoglu was quoted
as saying in the TIllY report.
Recent result of village guard terror.
I
I ;.
The last example of the village guard problem took place in September in Diyarbakir's Ugrak village. Three incfuding an
eight year-old, Agit Tekin were killed and five injured as a result of gun fire from village guards. The victims of the event
were members of the Tekin family that had returned to their village recently. According to the Human Rights Association
(lliD) Diyarbakir bureau, village guards have been using the land of the Tekin family for eight years and settled into the
Tekin family house.
IHD Diyarbakir bureau asks: Previously, it was the Nureddin village, today
guard terror. Which village is the next?
it is Ugrak village that witnessed the village
*. * * *
Kurdish groups unite as Turkey watches, warily
By Scott Peterson Christian Science Monitor October 04, 2002
AMMAN, JORDAN With the prospect of an American-orchestrated regime change in Iraq growing closer, rival Kurdish
factions in northern Iraq key potential allies of the US in any military action are burying their differences. The joint
Kurdish parliament will reconvene Friday in the Kurdistan National Assembly building in the city of Arbil. High on the
agenda is the consideration of a new constitution that lays out the Kurdish vision of a future, federated Iraq, post-Saddam
Hussein. Weather-worn front lines marked by rocky trenches have separated Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP) and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) for most of the past decade. But the civil war, spurred
by disputes over sharingrevenue and power, and mixed strategies' toward Baghdad, went quiet after a US-brokered
peace accord in 1998.
The revival of the regional assembly is one of the last key steps of that deal and is the first meeting of the group since 1996,
when inter-Kurdish fighting was nearing its peak. "This will send a very powerful message to Baghdad and to our neighbors
that the Kurdish front is solid, is unified, and that we will move. forward," says Hoshyar Zebari, a senior KDP strategist
contacted in northern Iraq.
'There are some attempts in America, in some quarters, to marginalize the Kurdish role," says Mr. Zebari; "This meeting
will convince our Amerj.can friends, if they had any doubts about the unity of the Kurds, that the strength of the Kurdish
front is reestablished." But while Kurdish unity may bring a sigh of relief in Washington as war looms and US war planners
look for viable allies on the ground it is .rattling Turkey.
Turkish forces have. frequently conducted armored operations into northern Iraq to root out Kurdish guerrillas from
Turkey of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. The group waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish rights from the mid-
1980s.Several thousand Turkish troops remain inside Iraqi border areas now. "Weare there to make sure [the Iraqi Kurds]
stay within bounds," says Seyfi Tashan, head of the Turkish Foreign Policy Institute in Ankara. "We are there, and can
intervene at any time. We have the capability to do that."
The Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq operates largely beyond Baghdad's control, protected by the US- and British-enforced
no-fly zone. Kurdish leaders insist that they see their future as part of a federated Iraq, and long ago gave up as unrealistic
the idea of forging an independent Kurdish state. "As we move along, our Turkish neighbors and others will realize
they have nothing to fear from our aspirations," says Barham Salih, prime minister of the PUK. "We aspire to have a peaceful,
democratic, and federal Iraq, and that is good for them also. We have a flourishing self-government process that can
be a catalyst for all Iraq."
It is no secret amongKurdish
observers that prospects of regime change in Iraq have brought the rival factions together.
'The timing could not have been better for the Kurds, given all the political maneuvering about the future composition of
an Iraqi government," says Michael Amitay, director of the Washington Kurdish Institute. The deal, Mr. Amitay says, "certainly
speaks to the US about how the Kurds can playa role or not in their concept of regime change. It's a very clever
piece of strategy."
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