IRAQ: Turkey's fight with Kurdish separatists

A separatist Kurdish leader sounded defiant this week after Turkey's parliament authorized more attacks against his group in northern Iraq. "We are ready and our forces are ready. We are not afraid of them. If they want to attack Iraq's Kurdistan, then the Middle East will turn into a fire ball,” Bozan Takeen, a senior leader from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), warned on Thursday by phone from his hideout in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Takeen, who is based in Iraqi Kurdistan’s Qandil mountains, which border Turkey and Iran, was speaking after Turkey’s parliament on Wednesday extended for one more year Ankara’s right to carry out military raids against the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Last fall, Turkey launched a campaign to root out PKK bases in Iraqi Kurdistan after accusing Iraqi officials of not doing enough to crack down on the separatists, who used the safety of Iraq to plot attacks against Turkish troops across the border.

“Turkey is continuously attacking our positions inside Turkey, and pursuing Kurds who belong to the movement,” Takeen said. “We are seeing nothing from Turkey. They want to wipe out Kurds from the map and that won't happen."

Last week, a PKK raid on a Turkish military base claimed the lives of at least 15 soldiers.

The PKK took up arms in 1984 against Ankara over their demands for Kurdish autonomy. The conflict has claimed up to 40,000 lives, most of them Kurds.

-- Asso Ahmed in Sulaymaniya

Photo: PKK fighters Credit: Asso Ahmed

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Comments

[Aram Tofi]

In Turkey racism has been around for a very long time. The last big wave began in Mustafa Kemals’e ‘Dream Empire’ and was tied up with people like Suleiman Demerel and others.

It is all tied up very much with the collapse of the modern Turkish dream and the development of a Kurd 'class' and so on. Part of the campaign was aimed to control the rich Kurdish cities.

It was also a combination therefore of racism and poor education system, but that was not a very attractive set of arguments for Kemalist to forbid the Kurds to have their Kurdish surnames at the same time applying the membership in EU.

I personally believe that there will be no place for such a racist government among the democratic EU members, or being a part of peace mission in Iraq. A racist government cannot understand the wisdom of peace and peace making.
Unfortunately, the main problem Kurds face is not small groups of racist thugs; it is institutional/state racism. While opposing all outbreaks of racial prejudice, Kurds understand that the biggest problems faced by the Kurds in Turkey and elsewhere are caused by the rotten Kemalist dry principles. In this regard Kurdish legal scholars aim to build links with other groups throughout the world working against Turkish racism, and stop them to have their footsteps in Iraqis soil.

Moreover, Kurdish people have to strive to combat racist myths; and to organise large numbers to oppose racist lies, agitation and legislation. We Kurds are a campaign that brings ordinary civilised people together in order to make our actions more effective to not welcome such a racist government to have a voice in our decision making. The Iraqis are capable to re-build their rich country without involvement of such a racist governments. Turks are not welcomed to enter Iraqis soil.

Aram Tofi

[U. Sarp Akoglu]

Calling terrorists with other names such as "rebels" and "fighters" is nothing but supporting terrorism itself. PKK is dubbed as a terrorist organization by the US, EU and many other international bodies. LA Times, please stop your double standards and call terrorists properly as terrorists. PKK systematically targets lives of civilians as well as soldiers. PKK claims lives of thousands of civilians, both Kurdisn and Turkish, including many children and babies, over the last 20+ years. LA Times, thus, should stop supporting terrorism.

[Enrico Erdel Pinar]

I have something to say to the writer of this report, first of all there is no such place in this world called kurdistan. Secondly pkk is not a party and it is a terrorist group that even USA has agreed to act against. (George Bush signed the policy). And third this has been going on since the seventies and has claimed over 80 thousand lives, most of them innocent Turks and tourists murdered from suicide bombs and the rest killed by the Turkish army who were PKK terrorists. So please next time u put an international report of this magnitude to the American public in one of the most respested news paper please do your homework.