IRAQ: KURDISH REBELS TO DECLARE TRUCE
CNN
Oct 22 2007
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party,
or PKK, will announce Monday a unilateral cease-fire following a
deadly attack on Turkish forces, a spokesman for Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani told CNN.
Talabani has been meeting with leaders in Iraq’s Kurdistan region
to quell tensions with Turkey after PKK rebels ambushed a Turkish
infantry unit early Sunday and killed at least 12 soldiers.
Eight soldiers are still missing. The Firat News Agency reported rebel
commander Bahoz Erdal as saying that "right now, these soldiers are
hostages in the hands of our forces… We have not harmed them and
we will not."
The attack happened in southeastern Turkey, but Turkey’s military
said the rebels were based in northern Iraq.
Sunday’s attack has raised the prospect of a major Turkish military
incursion into northern Iraq targeting the Kurdish separatists.
Last week Turkey’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to authorize
possible military strikes inside Iraqi territory against PKK fighters
accused of operating from bases there.
Amid U.S. and Iraqi calls for restraint, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan,
currently touring the Middle East, vowed that Turkey would continue
to pursue diplomatic efforts.
"But in the end, if we do not reach any results, there are other
means we might have to use," he said.
Responding to Sunday’s ambush, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan urged the U.S. to take "speedy steps" toward cracking down
on the PKK in Iraq, according to The Associated Press.
Erdogan said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had expressed
sympathy and asked "for a few days" in a telephone conversation
late Sunday.
In an interview conducted prior to the attack, Erdogan told the
UK’s Times newspaper that Turkey would do "whatever is necessary"
to defend itself.
"If a neighboring country is providing a safe haven for terrorism …
we have rights under international law and we will use those rights
and we don’t have to get permission from anybody," said Erdogan,
who was due to meet UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday in London.
Erdogan also said the U.S. risked "losing an important friend" if
lawmakers passed a bill declaring as "genocide" the mass killings of
Armenians by Turks during World War I.
In addition to those killed and missing, up to 16 soldiers were
reported wounded in Sunday’s ambush. The Belgian-based pro-Kurdish
Firat news agency released the names of seven Turkish troops it claimed
had been captured by separatists. It said an eighth soldier had also
been captured, AP reported.
Turkish forces retaliated to Sunday’s attack by killing 34 PKK
fighters, according to a statement on an official government Web site.
Cross-border shelling continued on Monday as AP reported sightings
of convoys containing dozens of military vehicles headed from the
southeast town of Sirnak toward the Iraqi border.
Meanwhile around 3,000 protesters gathered in Istanbul on Monday for
a second day in a row to call for an immediate military strike, CNN’s
Paula Hancocks reported. Small protests also took place in Ankara,
the Turkish capital, and elsewhere in the country.
After an emergency meeting Sunday of Turkey’s military and political
leaders, President Abdullah Gul issued a statement saying: "We will
continue on our path of determination in fighting the terrorist
organization. We respect Iraq’s national borders. But [we] will not
tolerate those who help and harbor terrorists."
Iraqi officials deny that militants are operating from territory under
their jurisdiction, claiming instead that PKK leaders are hiding
out in rugged mountain areas along the Turkish border that are not
controlled by Iraq.
Iraq’s Talabani, who is Kurdish, addressed the rising tensions with
Turkey during a meeting with Kurdish regional leader Massoud Barzani
in Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
Talabani reiterated Iraq’s demand that PKK rebels lay down their arms,
and re-stated calls for a diplomatic solution.
He also said Sunday that Iraqi forces were unable to find the rebel
leaders because of the difficult landscape.
"The Turkish military, with its mightiness, could not annihilate them
or arrest them, so how could we arrest them and hand them to Turkey?"
Talabani said at a news conference following his meeting with Barzani.
When asked how Iraq’s government would respond to the possibility
of Turkish ground forces in northern Iraq, Barzani urged dialogue
with Turkey but said: "If we are targeted directly we will defend
ourselves."
On Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said a major
cross-border operation would be "contrary to Turkey’s interests as
well as to our own and that of Iraq" following talks with Turkish
Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul in Kiev, Ukraine.
The U.S. fears a large-scale military operation by Turkey in northern
Iraq would undermine the stability of the U.S.-backed government in
Baghdad and jeopardize supply lines that support U.S. troops in Iraq.