Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
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Revue <strong>de</strong> Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka<br />
Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro <strong>de</strong> la Prensa-Baszn Öz<strong>et</strong>i<br />
January 8, 2001<br />
U.S., Britain Question Funds<br />
-ByNICOLE-WINFIELD Associated Press<br />
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. sanctions committee on Iraq <strong>de</strong>adlocked Monday on an Iraqi request to give<br />
the Palestinians $949 million from itsoil-sale proceeds after the United States and Britain said the money should be<br />
spent on suffering Iraqis, not Palestinians.<br />
The chairman of the committee, Norwegian Ambassador Ole P<strong>et</strong>er Kolby, said the Iraqi request would be taken up<br />
at a future me<strong>et</strong>ing and that he would me<strong>et</strong> with the Palestinian envoy to check his views about the proposal.<br />
Iraq's foreign minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf asked the Security Council last month to allocate the money this<br />
year from its U.N.-supervised oil sales to support the Palestinian uprising. In particular, the Iraqis said they wanted<br />
to compensate the families of the Palestinian victims and provi<strong>de</strong> them with food and medicine in a show of solidarity<br />
with their cause. More than 360 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in near-daily clashes with<br />
Israeli troops.<br />
While several diplomats said the Palestinians could certainly use additional aid, they said the U.N. oil-for-food program<br />
wasn't the right way to g<strong>et</strong> it to them. The program, which l<strong>et</strong>s Iraq sell its oil to buy food and medicine for<br />
its people, was created in 1996 to care for Iraqis living un<strong>de</strong>r crippling U.N. tra<strong>de</strong> sanctions.<br />
During Monday's me<strong>et</strong>ing, the United States questioned why the Iraqis would want to divert money from the program<br />
when it complains that the United Nations is still failing to me<strong>et</strong> its humanitarian needs, a U.S. official said.<br />
And a British official said the U.N. resolutions were clear that the proceeds from Iraqi oil sales were to provi<strong>de</strong> aid<br />
for Iraqis - not Palestinians or anyone else. Russia, China and Tunisia supported the Iraqi request, diplomats said.<br />
France, which often backs Iraq in the sanctions committee, said it was not opposed to the Iraqi request, but said the<br />
amount was too high. DiScussion of the Iraqi request came as the United Nations prepares for talks with Iraqi officials<br />
geared toward ending 10-year-old sanctions, imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.<br />
* * * * *<br />
DIYARBAKIR,Turkey, Jan 11 (AFP) - 13h56 - Turkish soldiers have killed six Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels<br />
in the southeastern province of Sirnak in the past two days, security officials said Thursday.<br />
Fighting broke b<strong>et</strong>ween soldiers conducting an operation to "ensure or<strong>de</strong>r and saf<strong>et</strong>y" and a group of PKK rebels in<br />
the remote province which bor<strong>de</strong>rs Syria and Iraq, said a statement from the emergency rule headquarters in the<br />
southeastern city of Diyarbakir. The statement ad<strong>de</strong>d that the <strong>de</strong>ad rebels were believed to have entered Turkey<br />
from a neighbouring country, which it did not name. The PKK took up arms against the Ankara government in 1984<br />
in pursuit of Kurdish self-rule in Turkey's eastern and southeastern regions, which are mainly populated by Kurds.<br />
But in September last year, the group <strong>de</strong>clared that it was halting its armed campaign and withdrawing from Turkish<br />
territory to seek a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict. Since then, previously heavy fighting in the region,<br />
which has claimed some 36,500 lives, has scaled down consi<strong>de</strong>rably. But the PKK truce, launched following peace<br />
calls from con<strong>de</strong>mned rebel Abdullah Ocalan, was brushed asi<strong>de</strong> by the Turkish army as a "terrorist ploy".<br />
Most of the rebels are believed to have crossed into northern Iraq, an area outsi<strong>de</strong> Baghdad's control sinc<strong>et</strong>he 1991<br />
Gulf war, since the. truce armouncement. The Turkish army frequently launches cross-bor<strong>de</strong>r operations into<br />
Kurdish-held northern Iraq to hunt down the rebels who it says use the area as a springboard for attacks against<br />
Turke~<br />
'<br />
Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit armounced at the weekend that Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq were currently<br />
giving 'technical help" to the two leading Kurdish factions in the mountainous area to fight against the PKK.<br />
* * * * *<br />
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