Turkish Press

[kurdeng at aps.nl]

(V-MailServer 2.20)
           id VT19350; Sat, 23 Sep 1995 21:17:36 -0800


    HURRIYET

    - Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) members caught trying to buy arms from
Romania in exchange for heroin.

    CUMHURIYET

    - An Israeli firm that won a contract to modernise Turkish F-4 jets was
turned down for a similar project in its own country because it wasn't
competent and its price was too high.

    - Turkey accuses feuding Iraqi groups of not trying hard enough for
peace.

Turks Bag Seven on Heroin Run
      ISTANBUL, Sept 18 (Reuter) - Turkish police said on Monday they had
arrested seven people, six Turks and one Romanian, trying to smuggle two kg
(4.4 pounds) of heroin out of the country.

    Police spokesman Captain Tayfun Bora told Reuters the seven had links to
a banned Kurdish guerrilla group and were planning to send the heroin to
Romania for further distribution,

    Turkish officials have often said the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),
fighting for autonomy or independence in southeast Turkey, funds its
11-year-old battle through narcotics traffic by bringing in heroin across
Turkey's border with Iran.


PKK Calls For Ceasefire
      ANKARA, Sept 19 (Reuter) - The leader of Turkey's Kurdish rebels is
considering calling a ceasefire in the guerrillas' 11-year-old separatist
campaign, a Kurdish news agency said on Tuesday.

    ``If the Turkish state does not come against us with the intention of
destroying, we want to start a new ceasefire process,'' the Germany-based DEM
agency quoted Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan as saying.


    The agency said the ceasefire would be similar to one called by the
rebels in 1993. That unilateral ceasefire held for nearly three months until
the guerrillas killed 33 unarmed soldiers in a bus ambush after complaining
Turkey had not reciprocated.

    More than 18,000 people have been killed in the PKK's fight for Kurdish
autonomy or independence in southeast Turkey.

    Turkey has often said it is on the brink of defeating the PKK militarily.


    DEM said Ocalan was considering holding a news conference to announce a
possible ceasefire ``in the following days.''

    ``The PKK has been in talks with Turkish circles who have agreed to
support their campaign for a ceasefire,'' the agency said. It did not
elaborate.

    Calls for a truce and international mediation by Ocalan last year were
flatly rejected by Prime Minister Tansu Ciller who said Turkey would not deal
with a ``terrorist.''

    The Marxist rebel leader, believed to be based in Syria or the
Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, urged Iraq's Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP) militia to hold talks with the PKK to end recent fighting between
the two groups.

    ``We expect the KDP to undertake steps for negotiations otherwise we will
not be responsible for the blood that flows,'' Ocalan, also known as ``Apo,''
told the agency.

    PKK fighters emerged from mountain hideouts in north Iraq last month to
attack targets in KDP-held territory in an apparent attempt to increase their
influence in the region.


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 * Origin: APS Amsterdam (aps.nl), bbs +31-20-6842147 (16:31/2.0)