Iraq vows to hunt down Kurdish rebel leaders

One group of rebel leaders they will be sure not to arrest are those from the PJAK who are fighting against Iran. They are apparently being aided by US arms. The US distinguishes them from the PKK for obvious reasons even though they carry out terrorist operations against military units in Iran. Unlike the PKK they do not seem to consider civilians as legitimate targets.
It remains to be seen how much will really get done as the central Iraqi government is certainly not going to be able to send troops to northern Iraq as the Kurd authorities would blow a fuse.


Iraq vows to hunt down Kurdish rebel leaders
Sat Nov 3, 2007 2:50 PM EDT



By Sue Pleming and Mussab Al-Khairalla

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Iraq said on Saturday it was ready to hunt down and arrest Kurdish guerrilla leaders responsible for cross-border raids into Turkey in an effort to avert a major incursion by the Turkish military.

Major powers and countries in the region, meeting in Istanbul to discuss Iraqi security, are seeking to ease tensions on the Turkish-Iraqi border that could escalate into a bigger regional crisis.

Turkey wants leaders of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) arrested and seeks the closure of camps in northern Iraq which they use as bases for cross-border attacks in their 23-year-old campaign for a homeland in southeast Turkey.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul as diplomatic efforts between Turkey, Iraq and the United States intensified.

"The prime minister renewed the willingness of the Iraqi government to take steps to isolate the terrorist PKK, prevent any help reaching its members, chase and arrest them, and put them in front of the Iraqi judiciary because of their terrorist activities," Maliki's office said in a statement.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told a news conference his country did not rule out carrying out military action jointly with Turkey against the PKK.

Erdogan is to meet U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday and the Turkish premier was upbeat about the outcome of talks.

"I believe this visit will give positive results on the United States taking concrete steps at a time when northern Iraq-based terrorist attacks are testing our nation's patience," Erdogan told reporters before leaving for Washington.

Turkey is impatient at what it regards as U.S. and Iraqi foot-dragging over the threat from the PKK and has massed 100,000 troops on the border for a possible offensive against about 3,000 rebels using Iraq as a base.

But the government in Baghdad has little influence over the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north and the success of any measures against PKK militants would depend on the cooperation of Kurdish authorities. Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani has so far refused to arrest PKK members.

"Soon you will see a number of visible measures implemented on the ground to show our seriousness," Zebari said.

In northern Iraq, a Kurdish official said the regional government had shut down the offices of a political party which sympathizes with the PKK, the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party, following calls by the Baghdad government.

GUERRILLA ATTACKS

The so-called "neighbors' conference," hosted by Turkey, was meant to focus on improving security in Iraq but has been overshadowed by the fall-out from the PKK guerrilla attacks.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has promised more action from the United States but provided scant details on how far Washington was prepared to go except to offer improved intelligence-sharing on the PKK.

No major announcements were made during Rice's two-day visit, or at the conference, partly because she did not want to upstage Monday's meeting in Washington between Erdogan and Bush.

Erdogan has come under pressure to act after dozens of Turkish soldiers were killed in PKK attacks in recent weeks.

The United States supports limited strikes by Turkey on PKK training sites but opposes any large-scale invasion.

"All options are on the table. How, when and whether or not to use these instruments is a matter of strategy for us," Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan told a news conference.

Several thousand people protested in the capital Ankara on Saturday, the latest in a series of demonstrations.

"It is clearly unacceptable that Iraq's territory is used to mount cross-border attacks," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Istanbul meeting of dozens of foreign ministers, held in an Ottoman palace on the banks of the Bosphorus.

A declaration after Saturday's meeting of ministers from major Western powers and the region included condemnation of all terrorism in Iraq, applauded bilateral arrangements between Iraq and its neighbors and supported the country's full sovereignty.

"It would blow up the whole region, both inside Turkey and inside Iraq. It is risky to have 100,000 soldiers on the border," said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

(Additional reporting by Evren Mesci, Gareth Jones, Emma Ross-Thomas and Daren Butler in Istanbul, Selcuk Gokoluk in Ankara, Sherko Raouf in Arbil and Ross Colvin in Baghdad)



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© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
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Trouble Brewing between Turkey and US?

The Turkish government has been requesting Iraq to crack down on these groups for ages. The US does not want to interfere it seems even though it classifies the PKK as a terrorist group. Obviously all terrorist groups are not equal in fact from time to time the US has helped out terrorist groups acting against Iran.


Turkey's military chief on Thursday said it was necessary to launch a cross-border military operation into northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels but that any decision to do so needed political approval from the Turkish government.

"It is necessary to launch an operation into Iraq," Chief of General Staff Yasar Buyukyanit told reporters. "The (Kurdish Workers' Party) PKK has huge freedom of movement in Iraq."

He also said the military had launched a number of large-scale operations against PKK rebels in south-east Turkey.

Buyukyanit said the operations had been launched as snow melting in mountain passes made it easier for rebels from the PKK to enter Turkey from neighbouring Iraq.

The general's statement will increase pressure on the Turkish government to give the green-light to a cross-border operation aimed at destroying PKK camps in mountainous northern Iraq. The military has previously said there are around 5,000 PKK guerrillas based at the camps.

The Turkish government has repeatedly called on the United States and Iraq to launch its own operations against the PKK, an organization that both the United States and the European Union describe as a terrorist group, the last coming on Wednesday from Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

"Our position is very clear ... If harm is coming to Turkey from a neighbour then that neighbour must do something to stop it," Gul said on Wednesday. "If they do not have the power (to stop the PKK) then international law provides the necessary remedies," Gul said.

While US officials have expressed their sympathy for Turkey's position they say that US forces in Iraq are too stretched to be able to carry out such an operation.

The United States is also concerned that a Turkish operation would upset Iraqi Kurdish groups and might destabilize the region, the only part of Iraq that is relatively free of violence.

Buyukyanit said 13 Turkish soldiers had died fighting PKK rebels in the first four months of the year and complained that the 2003 US- led invasion of Iraq had resulted in a large number of Iraqi army weapons falling into the hands of the Kurdish guerrillas.

More than 32,000 people, mainly Kurdish civilians caught in the crossfire, have been killed since the PKK launched its fight for independence or autonomy in the early 1980s for the predominantly Kurdish-populated south-east of Turkey.

A Turkish View: The West and Terrorism

THis is an old story but shows the hypocrisy practiced by the US and some European countries as well. Of course the treatment of Kurds in Turkey is notorious but even so the article clearly demonstrates that some terrorists get special treatment! The same is true of some groups fighting to overthrow the Iranian government.


The West and Terrorism: PKK as A Privileged Terrorist Organization
Sunday , 14 May 2006





View: Sedat Laciner

The PKK is a Kurdist and separatist terrorist organization. The US and EU laws say that it is a terrorist organization. According to the British MI5 reports, it is one of the bloodiest terrorist organizations. It means that there is no difference between Al Qaeda and the PKK before the Western legal system.

However the PKK has military bases in Iraq and propaganda offices in the EU capitals. The terrorist organization is probably the only terrorist organization that has satellite TV channel. The PKK’s Roj TV has been broadcasting from Denmark. It uses the Hotbird satellite. France and the UK had banned the previous PKK channels after Turkey’s years-long struggle. The PKK controls the drug business and human trafficking in Europe, and all the money comes from this illegal business goes to the so-called media institutions. The PKK media makes money-laundering, and the organization uses all this sources to finance its activities.

The PKK has offices in Denmark, Belgium and in many other Western European cities. The US officials last week openly blamed the EU states of allowing the PKK propaganda activities in their countries. Kurt Volker, the deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs in the U.S. State Department, said late Thursday that media channels belonging to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party's (PKK) in Europe should be declared part of terrorist organizations and must be closed down. Delivering a speech at a U.S. House of Representatives meeting discussing emerging threats in Europe, Volker labeled the PKK a threat to Europe's security.

The PKK has always been a privileged terrorist organization in Europe. Greece and the Greek Cyprus openly supported the PKK activities in the past. When the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in the Greek Embassy in Kenya, a Greek Cypriot passport was found on him. The official documents vividly show that the Greece and Cyprus Greeks financed many PKK activities and they gave great political support to PKK terrorism.

When the Syrians deported the head of the PKK terrorists, Abdullah Ocalan traveled many European states, including Russia, Greece and Italy. Many European politicians, including Germans, Italians, British and French, openly visited him though their own laws named Abdullah Ocalan as terrorist. When Ocalan arrived in Rome on November 12, 1998 traveling on a false passport, he was arrested. However he was never seen as a ‘real terrorist’ by the Italian authorities. For the ordinary Turks, the Italians simply protected him. They even did not fulfill what the Italian laws said.

Ocalan requested that Rome grant him political asylum, and Italy did not know what to do with a terrorist. Now we see that the Turkish people never forget the Italians’ strange attitude towards one of the bloodiest terrorist in the world. Ocalan was not only a leader of the PKK. He had ordered and personally committed many murders and even massacres. His targets were not only the Turks but Kurds and even the not-loyal PKK members. There are hundreds of eye-witnesses for his individual murder crimes.

Italian courts have ruled that, despite an existing international arrest warrant issued, Ocalan cannot be extradited to Turkey because the death penalty could be applied in his case, despite Ankara’s moves to remove capital punishment. This was the source of the great Turkish anger against Italy. Italy could put Ocalan to an Italian court, because he was a terrorist according to the Italian and EU laws as well. Yet the Rome Government could not dare to do as well.

Germany had an existing arrest warrant for Ocalan, and Turkey hinted that it would accept a solution where Germany would try Ocalan. But the German government decided it did not want him both out of fear of terrorism and because of likely clashes between the Turkish and PKK militants in Germany. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder declared, "We decided to protect the peace of Germany." Germans preferred not to combat against terrorism. It meant that they only considered peace in Germany and they did not give importance to peace in Turkey. Thus the German Government, in spite of the existing arrest warrant for Ocalan and existing laws considering PKK as a terrorist organization, did not put Ocalan to a German court. Strangely Italian and German politicians argue that the both countries courts are independent and they have no tool to intervene their legal system. However we saw in the Ocalan case that both countries courts did what their Government wanted.

German and Italian officials adopted the argument that an International Court should try Ocalan, ignoring the absence of an international body with the jurisdiction to try an individual like Ocalan. Italy could try Ocalan under existing anti-terrorism treaties, but Rome shown no interest in doing so.

Ocalan was one of the most significant terrorist leaders in the world, with a legacy of untold carnage to his name. And he has lost his international backing, which is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the condition that allows terrorism to flourish. Yet as Tzvi Fleischer put it, “the response of both Italy and Germany was to do their best to make the problem go away, fear of revenge being their reason to avoid responsibilities they have under international anti-terrorism agreements”. (1)

Ocalan then visited Greece and no Greek authorities captured or arrested him. The next stop was Russia and the Russians, who always complaining from terrorism, did nothing to arrest him.

Finally Ocalan was captured in Kenya, Africa. He was in a Greek Embassy and his passport from Greek Cyprus. Turkish special team was assisted by the Americans and all of the Turkish media underlined the American assistance in capturing Abdullah Ocalan. The Washington clearly accused the EU states on handling the Ocalan case. The Turkish public has never forgotten the EU’s and the US’ stance towards the PKK and Ocalan.


American Double Standard?

The American assistance in combating PKK made Bill Clinton the most popular American president in Turkey.

The situation has shifted dramatically after the Iraq War. The PKK, which was on the US’ and EU’s terrorist organization list, established many terrorist camps in Northern Iraq. The US authorities first promised to remove all these camps when they invaded Iraq. Iraq was their responsibility and removal of the terrorists, including the PKK, was their one of the foremost tasks. However, the Americans ignored the PKK terrorists for the past years. The PKK established training camps. They established logistic stores. They collected ‘donations’, bought arms. The drug smuggling and human trafficking were continued as financial sources of the PKK. Money went to the European PKK propaganda network and terrorist activities in Turkey. In 3 years the PKK reached 3.000-armed-terrorists under the American and local Kurdish protection.

The local Kurdish political groups, namely Barzani and Talabani groups, saw the PKK as guarantee of their independence. Turkey was seen as the only country could prevent Kurdish independent state in Iraq and as far as Turkey was busy in struggling against the PKK terrorism, Turks were not able to involve the Iraqi policies. Both the neo-cons and the Kurdist groups in Iraq prevent Turkish approach in Iraq. Turkey was kept away from the Iraq policies. While the cost of the Iraqi occupation for the US has rocketed, Turkey has suffered from the PKK terrorism. The PKK used Iraqi territories to attack Turkish territories. The local Kurds and the US have done almost nothing to stop the PKK terrorists.

Nowadays the American diplomats in Ankara hint that the US authorities did not promised to remove the PKK camps, which is not true. Imagine the American diplomats are right: American President Bush, Secretor of State Rice, former secretor of State Powell and many other Americans did not promise to remove the terrorist camps from Iraq. As a matter of fact, this would be the worse than unfulfilled promises.

The PKK camps in Iraq have undermined Turkey-US relations. The USAK made a survey last year, 2005. According to the Survey, 74 % of the Turks saw the existence of the PKK camps in Iraq as the ‘thorniest problem’ in US - Turkey relations. The US and Turkey are NATO allies and have been strategic allies since the end of the Second World War. Turkish people have all the rights to expect from the US to remove the terrorist camps from Iraq. At least the US has to demilitarize the PKK militants as it demilitarized the anti-Iranian groups in Iraq.

***

To make it clearer let’s make comparison: If Turkey acted against the terrorist as the EU and the US today do, the Al Qaeda would have a satellite TV station broadcasting from Ankara to Western Europe and Northern America. This Al Qaeda channel would encourage violence in the West and always call for terrorist attacks against the Western targets. Turkey, in response to the Western governments would have said that Turkey was a democratic country and the Al Qaeda TV station should be considered under the free speech principle. If Turkey acted against the terrorist as the EU and the US today do, all of the radical Islamist terror organizations would have terrorist camps in Istanbul or in Izmir operating terrorist activities against Greece or France. If Turkey acted against the terrorist as the EU and the US today do, the IRA, ETA and all other terrorist organizations would have offices in Ankara and they would declare war against the US, UK or Spain. If Turkey acted against the terrorist as the EU and the US today do, Ankara Government would have allowed the terrorist organization to collect donations, to make drug smuggling and money laundering in Turkey. If Turkey acted against the terrorist as the US today do, all Iraqi insurgents had camps in Turkey and they would use Turkish territories to attack the American targets…

Turkish parliament discusses invading northern Iraq

Imagine the reaction if Iran's parliament secretly discussed invading southern Iraq! The US would go ballistic. However, Turkey is an ally and US uses at least one airbase in Turkey.




Turkey mulls 'invading' Iraq
By Jonathan Gorvett in Istanbul





Turkey considers the PKK a terrorist group and continues to fight it in the southeast [EPA]



Turkey's parliament went into secret session this week to debate sending troops to invade and occupy northern Iraq for security purposes.



More than 30,000 people have been killed in the confrontation between the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and the Turkish army – about 400 last year alone, according to Turkey's Human Rights Association.





Onur Oymen, the deputy chairman of the Opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said: "Northern Iraq is the only place in the world where a terrorist group can operate without being pursued."



"If the Iraqis and the US are not prepared to take action over this, then we must."







Oymen referred to bases in northern Iraq belonging to the PKK which has been fighting Turkish troops since the 1980s to try to establish a separate Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey.



Northern Iraq has been effectively independent of Baghdad's control since the early 1990s.



"The US are doing nothing and the Kurdish authorities are doing nothing"

Onur Oymen, CHP deputy chairman

Casualties mounting




The PKK have bases around Kandili mountain in northern Iraq, and despite requests from Turkey for Iraqi and US occupation forces to attack these bases, Turkey says nothing has been done.



"The US are doing nothing and the Kurdish authorities are doing nothing," Oymen said.



"But we have the right to secure our borders – and if they act against an intervention by Turkish troops, then we must take the necessary action in response."



US officials deny that they have been inactive. On January 17, US and Iraqi Kurdish troops moved in on the Mahmur refugee camp in northern Iraq, which Turkey had long claimed was a PKK training and recruiting camp.



However, the troops said they did not find any weapons or explosives.



At the same time, Nicholas Burns, the US under-secretary of state for political affairs, said that the US was "trying to find what can be done to stop PKK attacks on the Turkish military" without the need for any further "resort to the use of force".



Kirkuk



Ankara also has concerns over the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, which will hold a referendum on its future status this year.



The oil-rich city has a Turkomen and Arab population that Ankara says is being sidelined by Kurds in a rush to take control.



A recent conference held in the Turkish capital to discuss the status of Kirkuk drew criticism from Kurdish leaders, who saw it as interference in Iraqi internal affairs.





Erdogan said Turkey has every
right to discuss Kirkuk [EPA]

This prompted Recip Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, to hit back, saying that Turkey had every right to discuss the city and could not "remain indifferent to the plight of the Turkomens and Arabs … in Kirkuk".



But Massoud Barzani, leader of one of two main Iraqi Kurdish factions, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), said last week: "These threats are worthless. We are not afraid of Turkey."



Border trade booms



Tough talk between Ankara and the Kurds in northern Iraq has done little to halt the flow of goods over the border.



Zeki Fattah, a senior economic adviser to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil, the northern Iraqi capital, said: "If you want to see what’s really going on, go down to the border.



"At the border you’ll see a queue of trucks, stretching for over 20km, bringing with them all manner of goods from Turkey."



Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, business between these two former warring neighbours has mushroomed.



About 70 per cent of all government and private sector contracts issued in the KRG area have been to Turkish firms, according to the KRG’s Kurdistan Development Corporation (KDC).



Mia Early, the KDC's head of investment promotion said: "At the end of 2006, the Erbil Chamber of Commerce had 385 active international companies registered.



"The majority of them were Turkish."



The Kurdistan Region in Iraq – as the KRG calls the three, predominantly Kurdish northern Iraqi governorates under its jurisdiction – relies a great deal on this trade with Turkey.



"There are four to five million people here in the region," Fattah said. "We do maybe $2bn to $3bn of trade with Turkey every year – it's our main partner.



"The only discussion is over sending troops [to Iraq] on a limited cross-border operation against the PKK"

Cengiz Candar, Referans

"The relationship is also becoming more cultural and organic too. We're now even trying to do a deal whereby Kurdish football teams will match up with Turkish ones."



Energy ties



Energy is also a big area of investment between the two neighbours. The Kirkuk region holds about 10 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.



Joost Hiltermann, the International Crisis Group's deputy programme director for the Middle East and North Africa said: "Being landlocked, the Kurdish region is very dependent on Turkey to transport this oil … Turkey also realises this."



The relationship may run two ways as well.



"As Turkey moves towards European Union membership, it will become a major energy conduit for the European countries," Fattah said.



"To help them in this, we want to become their back yard for oil and gas. We're looking to build refineries along the border and use our energy revenues to boost Turkey's prospects too.



"Under the future distribution of funds from Iraqi oil and gas, the Kurdish region will get an enormous increase in income, providing a major market for Turkey as well."



Tough election talk



Nevertheless, political jibes continue.



"This year is a double election year in Turkey," Hiltermann said.



"In April-May, there will be presidential elections and in October - November, parliamentary. Combine these with the upcoming referendum over the future of Kirkuk and there are some difficult consequences."



"Where is sending an army going to get anyone, especially in this region? The Americans tried that, and look where it got them"

Zeki Fattah, KRG economic advisor

Cengiz Candar, a Middle East expert and columnist for the Turkish daily Referans, agrees.



"The upcoming elections have given a big push for nationalist and populist rhetoric here," he said.



"No one is seriously thinking of sending troops to Kirkuk. The only discussion is over sending troops on a limited cross border operation against the PKK."



However, in the complex politics of the region, even that may not prove necessary.



"Being secret, the parliamentary session already dramatises the issue," Candar said. "It sends a signal of disquiet to the US and the Iraqi Kurds.



"This secrecy is its own drama of deterrence, which is why I don't think it’s realistic to expect anything from the debate itself."



Meanwhile, convoys of lorries moving across Turkey's southern border are carrying washing machines and TV sets, rather than soldiers.



"These people who talk about sending in the tanks just don't see the big picture," Fattah said.



"Where is sending an army going to get anyone, especially in this region? The Americans tried that, and look where it got them."






Source: Al Jazeera