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Turkey slams Iraqi Kurds after rebel
attack kills 15 Turkish soldiers
6.10.2008
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October
6, 2008
ANKARA, — , The Turkish military Sunday
accused Iraqi Kurds of aiding Turkish Kurdish PKK
rebels holed up in their autonomous enclave in
Kurdistan region "northern Iraq" after the militants
killed at least 15 Turkish soldiers in a daytime
attack near the border.
The charge came from the deputy chief of the army as
top government and military officials joined
thousands of mourners across the country for the
funerals of the soldiers slain in Friday's attack by
Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels on a
military outpost in the mountainous southeast.
"We have no support at all from the northern Iraqi
administration (against the rebels). Let aside any
support,www.ekurd.net
they are providing (the
rebels with) infrastructural capabilities such as
hospitals and roads," General Hasan Igsiz told a
press conference here.
"Our expectation is that (the PKK) be acknowledged
as a terrorist organisation there and that support
for the rebels be eliminated," he said.
Ankara charges that thousands of PKK rebels easily
obtain weapons and explosives in Kurdistan "northern
Iraq" for attacks on Turkish targets across the
border. Turkey says the rebels use Iraqi Kurdistan
territory as a safe haven. Iraqi and Kurdish
authorities in Kurdistan region strongly reject the
claim.
Iraqi authorities have repeatedly pledged to curb
the PKK, but say that the group's hideouts in
mountainous regions are difficult to access.
"There are measures to be taken against the (PKK)
hideouts. We are expecting positive action on the
ground," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said as
he joined an estimated crowd of 2,000 in Armutlu, a
village near Ankara, to lay one of the soldiers to
rest.
Senior officials will meet Thursday to discuss
further measures against the rebels, Erdogan added
after the funeral where mourners shouted anti-PKK
slogans.
"The martyrs are immortal, the motherland is
indivisible," the crowd chanted as soldiers carried
the coffin, wrapped in a Turkish flag, on their
shoulders.
Television stations estimated that about 10,000
people attended the funerals held in 13 provinces.
In the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey, the army
moved soldiers and equipment to border regions with
Kurdistan while helicopters flew reconnaissance
flights over routes used by the PKK and soldiers
positioned howitzers in the mountains, Anatolia news
agency reported.
In the bloodiest fighting this year, PKK rebels
attacked the outpost, located in a deep valley
surrounded by rugged mountains in the border
province of Hakkari,www.ekurd.net
Friday afternoon under
cover of heavy weapons fire from neighbouring
northern Iraq, killing 15 soldiers.
Twenty-three rebels were killed in the ensuing
fighting lasting late into the night during which
Turkish forces responded with artillery fire and
attack helicopters pounded rebel positions.
Igsiz said two other soldiers still remained
unaccounted for and a search was underway, but added
that the army believed them to have been killed.
"If they had been captured (by the rebels), we would
have seen some signs," Igsiz said.
After an initial air strike on Friday against a
group of rebels inside Iraq, about 10 kilometers
(six miles) from the attacked station, fighter jets
struck at rebels fleeing after attacking the outpost
in a second cross-border strike Saturday, the army
said in statement Sunday.
"The planes returned safely to base after
successfully completing their mission," it said,
without further details.
The PKK said in a statement carried by an agency
close to the rebels that they had killed 62 soldiers
and wounded more than 30 others in Friday's attack.
It put its own losses at nine rebels.
Friday's attack came just days before the Turkish
parliament was set to vote on extending by one year
the government's mandate to order military strikes
against PKK bases in northern Iraq.
Under a one-year parliamentary authorisation voted
last October, the army has carried out several air
strikes and a week-long ground incursion against PKK
targets, using intelligence passed on by NATO ally
Washington.
The current authorisation expires October 17.
Turkey has never, and still does not, recognize the
Kurdistan region government (KRG) and refuses to
meet with its representatives in any official
capacity. That reflects Ankara's fear that any
international respect shown to the autonomous Iraqi
Kurdistan region would only embolden Turkey's own
large Kurdish minority to seek similar home-rule
status.
Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan regional
government that holds sway in northern Iraq,
regretted Ankara's refusal to hold direct talks on
the crisis over the Turkey's separatist Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) rebels.
In earlier statement by Iraqi Kurdistan forces chief
Brig. Gen. Jabbar Yawar, an undersecretary for the
ministry governing Kurdistan protection forces known
as Peshmerga, said "Turkey wants imaginary and
impossible demands. They want us to kill all PKK for
them while they themselves cannot do that," he said.
Iraqi Kurds says previously we saw the Turkish army
invading the region under the pretext of chasing the
PKK and this army did nothing.
Over 39,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas have been killed since 1984 when the
Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly
Kurdish southeast of Turkey (Turkey-Kurdistan). A large Turkey's
Kurdish community openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK rebels.
The PKK demanded Turkey's recognition of the Kurds'
identity in its constitution and of their language
as a native language along with Turkish in the
country's Kurdish areas, the party also demanded
an end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, ranting them full
political freedoms.
The PKK is considered a 'terrorist' organization by
Ankara, U.S., the PKK continues to be on the
blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which
overturned a decision
to place the Kurdish rebel
group PKK and its political wing on
the European Union's terror list.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population
as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural
rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish
language and private Kurdish language courses with
the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish politicians
say the measures fall short of their expectations.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, AFP | Agencies
** Kurds are not recognized as an official minority
in Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in Big
Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to 25 million ethnic Kurds, a large
Turkey's Kurdish community openly sympathise with
the Kurdish PKK for a Kurdish homeland in the
country's mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media. The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish alphabet has led
to judicial persecution in 2000 and 2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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