Mainstream News On The Conflict In

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Mainstream News On The Conflict In South Kurdistan

PKK Kurds Protest In Greece

Athens, Greece (UPI - September 10, 1996) Scores of Kurds took to
the streets Tuesday in the Greek capital to protest against plans
by Turkey to set up a security zone in northern Iraq.
     Shouting slogans and carrying banners, protesters marched to
the U.S. and Turkish embassies in a demonstration organized by
the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a separatist group distinct
from the two Iraqi Kurdish factions clashing in northern Iraq,
the PUK and the KDP.
     "The ongoing clashes in Kurdistan reinforce Turkey's plan
for a genocide of the Kurds", said Antar Sekkete, the PKK's
representative in Greece.
     Together with protesters he handed a petition to the Turkish
Embassy, denouncing the "fascist regime of Turkey" for setting up
a 9-mile (15-km) security zone in northern Iraq.
     Protesters set ablaze a poster showing Turkish Foreign
Minister Tansu Ciller leading a cowboy-garbed U.S. President Bill
Clinton and a donkey-shaped sketching of Turkish Prime Minister
Necmetin Erbakan. Sketched beneath them was a blood-blotched
carictature of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
     Greece also opposes the Turkish buffer zone, warning that
Turkey would set a dangerous precedent for randomly changing
existing borders.
     For years, Greece has strongly supported safeguarding human
rights for Kurds in Turkey. Its open support has prompted
frequent accusations by Ankara that special training camps have
been set up for Kurdish rebels in Greece and southern Cyprus.

Troops Hunt Rebel Kurds In Eastern Turkey

By Ferit Demir

Tunceli, Turkey (Reuter - September 8, 1996) Turkish security
forces stepped up land and air operations against Kurdish
separatists Sunday after the rebels shot nine government troops
to death in an ambush.
     Security officials said up to 20,000 troops, backed by
helicopters, were involved in the latest move against Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas, waging a 12-year fight for
self-rule. More than 20,000 people have died in the insurgency.
     "Heavy clashes are continuing since last night and we
suspect the death toll and casualties may mount", said a military
official who asked not to be identified.
     The theater of operations included a triangle formed by the
provinces of Tunceli, Erzincan and Bingol, the security sources
said.
     The state-run Anatolian news agency said two Turkish troops
and two PKK guerrillas were killed in a clash Sunday in Genc
township, Bingol province. Three soldiers were also injured.
     In Yusekova, near the Iranian border in Hakkari province,
police carried out house-to-house searches for PKK rebels after
slapping a curfew on the district and cutting telephone service,
Anatolian said. The restrictions were lifted later Sunday.
     Earlier, about 40 PKK gunmen ambushed a Turkish unit near
Kemaliye township, also in Bingol province, military sources told
Reuters.
     Nine members of the security forces were killed. Government
troops killed two rebels after sending helicopter-backed support
to the region.
     The incident occurred about 5.30 p.m. Saturday when the
Turkish troops were returning from a military operation. The
sources said they believed the PKK militants behind the attack
were cornered in the region.
     The separatist PKK, which often uses bases inside Iraq to
launch attacks on Turkish targets, remains strong in the almost
inaccessible mountains and valleys of eastern Turkey.
     The attack was the biggest PKK action inside Turkey since
the Kurdish faction's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, declared a renewed
war last week in response to Turkey's saying it might impose a
six-mile-deep security zone inside Iraq to repel the Kurds.
     Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller reiterated that
Turkey's plans for the zone were "temporary", a promise essential
to securing U.S. understanding.
     "All we are trying to do is to make sure that the terrorists
don't infiltrate. And for that we are talking about a very thin
zone next to our border which will help us defend this border so
that the terrorists do not infiltrate", Ciller said.
     She said her government ultimately planned to monitor
Kurdish rebel activity in northern Iraq with an electronic
system, eliminating any need to keep troops there.
     Iran said Sunday that Turkey's proposed security zone was a
territorial violation that would escalate regional tensions.
     Foreign Ministry spokesman Mahmoud Mohammadi criticized the
decision and said Iran believed such a zone violated Iraqi
territorial integrity.
     Mohammadi said the Turkish move was "contrary to the good
intentions of a neighboring nation, in violation of international
codes of practice and a measure not acceptable to the Islamic
Republic of Iran."
     He added that "such a measure would be the cause of an
escalation of tension in the region", IRNA reported.
     Iran earlier rejected accusations that its forces had
intervened in fighting between Kurdish factions in northern Iraq.
Iranian television reported Sunday that Tehran wanted a peaceful
solution to the region's problems.
     U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said in London
over the weekend the United States understood Turkey's reasons
for establishing the security zone in Iraq and had been assured
it would be temporary and involve no permanent troops.
     Iraqi Kurdish villagers in the border region did not wait to
see if the Turks would impose the security cordon along the
volatile, mountainous region.
     Scores of refugees left from the area around Banek, about 20
miles from the main Iraqi border town of Zakho. They shuttled
their belongings to a valley further south, leaving behind their
fruit and vegetable harvests.
     Egyptian Deputy Foreign Minister Sayyed Qassem el-Masri
rejected Turkey's explanations of its need to set up the security
zone.
     "This position reminds us of a similar position when Israel
announced the creation of a security zone in southern Lebanon,
with technical differences", Masri told reporters.
     He said Egypt would request an official discussion of the
matter at the U.N. Security Council.

Kurdish Group Asks U.S. Aid Against Fresh Iraqi-Kurd Assault

Irbil, Iraq (AP - September 8, 1996) A Kurdish rebel group said
it was under fierce attack by Saddam Hussein's forces and a rival
Kurdish faction on Sunday. It called for intervention by the
United States.
     United Nations officers in Irbil, at least 18 miles from the
reported battle, confirmed a new Iraqi infantry drive was
underway. One U.N. officer, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said fighting was preventing the U.N. forces from going to the
scene.
     The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, whose guerrillas were
ousted from Irbil a week ago by Iraqi troops and rival Kurds,
said fierce fighting erupted at 8 a.m. local time Sunday.
     A PUK statement and the U.N. officers' comments placed the
action in a triangle between Irbil on the west, Dokan Lake on the
east and the Little Zab River.
     This area, along with the city of Sulaymaniya southeast of
the embattled triangle, form the last main strongholds for the
PUK in Iraq.
     Until Aug. 31, the PUK was in control of Irbil, the de facto
Kurdish capital in northern Iraq. Then, Saddam's land forces
punched into the city with the PUK's rival, the Kurdistan
Democratic Party. The KDP has now supplanted the PUK in Irbil,
the largest city in what was supposed to be a "safe haven" that
protected the Kurds from Saddam's wrath.
     "We call on the U.S. and its coalition partners to intervene
urgently to halt the Iraqi aggression and end this onslaught
against the Kurdish people", the PUK said in a fax sent to The
Associated Press in Nicosia, Cyprus, from its office in a
Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C.
     The United States launched cruise missiles at Iraq last
Tuesday and Wednesday after Saddam defied the Western allies'
decree that northern Iraq was a "safe haven" for Kurds.
     Nearly half of Iraq, comprising wide swaths of "no-fly"
zones in both northern and southern Iraq, are also off-limits to
Saddam's aircraft. These measures were taken after a U.S.-led
military coalition drove Saddam's occupation forces out of Kuwait
in the 1991 Gulf War.
     The KDP is headed by Massoud Barzani, once an ally of PUK
leader Jalal Talabani in the campaign for Kurdish independence.
     "At 8:00 a.m. today (Sunday), Iraq-Barzani forces, supported
by tanks and heavy artillery, attacked Kurdish positions at the
junction of Degala, southeast of Irbil", the PUK said. "Fierce
fighting is reported in the area."
     The PUK said Iraqi and KDP forces were trying to break
through their lines to capture Kuysanjaq, which it said has a
population of 80,000.
     Kuysanjaq is about 30 miles southeast of Irbil.
     The U.N. officer said Iraqi infantry were pushing southeast
on a different axis toward Taqtaq, 70 kilometers southeast of
Irbil, near the Little Zab River.
     He said a force made up mainly of KDP fighters, but aided by
some Iraqi government troops, have pushed the PUK out of Degala,
about 18 miles east of Irbil.

Rival Kurdish Factions Hold Fire In Northern Iraq

Irbil, Iraq (AP - September 6, 1996) Two rival Kurdish factions
held their fire outside this northern town today after a day of
heavy clashes left tension in the air and Iraqi tanks positioned
nearby.
     For the first time in almost a week, no fighting was
reported anywhere in Iraq. However, the United States and its
allies planned to continue their flights over "no-fly" zones in
northern and southern Iraq, and President Saddam Hussein has
vowed to target the aircraft.
     U.S. intelligence reports Thursday indicated Saddam's troops
and tanks were withdrawing from the Kurdish enclave in northern
Iraq. But he was leaving behind spies and other secret agents to
reassert his power in the region, The New York Times reported
today from Washington.
     In Irbil, U.N. official Paul Dahl said that fighting had
stopped between the Iranian-backed Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the two groups that battled
Thursday in Bestana, about 19 miles southeast of Irbil.
     "But who knows what will happen in an hour's time", he said.
"The area is still very tense."
     He said Iraqi troops and tanks were entrenched about 10
miles southeast of Irbil, though have not taken part in the most
recent skirmishes.
     "They seem to be digging in and it does not look as though
they are about to leave", Dahl said after visiting the area.
"They are not hiding at all, anyone can see them."
     The Iraqi troops, who have been supporting the KDP, were
near the 36th parallel, the northern no-fly zone. It was not
clear whether they were just north or south of the line.
     President Clinton ordered cruise missile attacks on Iraqi
radar and command sites Tuesday and Wednesday in response to a
weekend offensive by Iraq on the protected Kurdish area in its
north. He also ordered an expansion of the no-fly zone in
southern Iraq. The allies imposed two zones after the 1991
Persian Gulf War to protect Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims
in the south.
     Still, Iraq's leadership remained defiant, with the ruling
Revolution Command Council chaired by Saddam saying late Thursday
it would fight allied warplanes' "violation" of Iraqi airspace.
"We will continue resisting it according to the legitimate right
of self-defense and in defense of national sovereignty", the
council said.
     Iraq denounced the attacks as a "war crime" and urged the
United Nations to condemn them.
     And in the Iraqi capital Thursday, hundreds of people burned
President Clinton in effigy, shouted anti-American slogans and
pledged support for Saddam.
     Secretary of State Warren Christopher was in Bonn, Germany,
today in an effort to win support from Washington's European
allies for the U.S. action against Saddam.
     A German government statement said Chancellor Helmut Kohl
and Christopher discussed "all current international issues" and
had a "large degree of agreement." Officials refused to
elaborate.
     Christopher won some support from France on Thursday. The
French will resume patrols Monday in the north and broaden their
patrols in the south, though they will not cover as wide an area
as patrols by the United States and Britain.
     The U.N. Security Council was trying to forge a common stand
against Iraq's incursion into Kurdistan. Chinese, Russian, French
and Egyptian diplomats have opposed measures that may threaten
Iraq's sovereignty.
     In Washington, State Department spokesman Glyn Davies said
that while the Iraqis have pulled back most of their mechanized
infantry from the Irbil area, they retain an ability to intervene
in the region.
     Saddam has "reintroduced a massive security presence in the
area under cover of these deployments", Davies said. "This gives
him a new and, we think, troubling ability to intimidate Kurds
and others in the north." He did not elaborate.
     The New York Times said it was unclear how many secret
agents Saddam was leaving behind, but that there were enough to
intimidate those who oppose his leadership.
     In Irbil on Thursday, KDP fighters screamed victory slogans
and sang marching songs as they traveled toward the battle zone
in any vehicle they could find.
     Irbil residents interviewed by The Associated Press said
Iraqi troops rounded up dozens of anti-Saddam activists after
capturing the city Saturday. The city of 1 million people tried
to resume a normal life five days after the battles broke out.
Most stores had reopened.
     Iraq's Kurdish factions have opposed Baghdad for decades.
Since the safe haven was established they mostly have quarreled
with each other. On Thursday, their fighting was centered near
Bestana, just south of Irbil.
     A new regional problem has arisen this week, with Turkey
saying it will send troops into northern Iraq to prevent Kurdish
rebels fleeing the fighting from crossing its border.
     Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Sahhaf summoned the top
Turkish diplomat in Baghdad on Thursday to protest Turkey's
military preparations as "unjustified conduct", the Iraqi News
Agency reported.

Key Kurd Says Deal With Iraq Is Stopgap

By Stephen Kinzer

Dohuk, Iraq (New York Times - September 5, 1996) A leader of the
Kurdish faction backed by Saddam Hussein insisted Wednesday that
the alliance was just a tactical and temporary partnership of the
kind that have sustained the beleaguered Kurds for centuries.
     In an interview here, a powerful member of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party said short-term necessity had driven his group
into a military alliance with the Iraqi dictator, who once gassed
Kurds with chemical weapons, to seize control of Erbil from a
rival Kurdish group.
     The group turned to Saddam only after Western governments
refused to defend the city against rivals cooperating with Iran,
said Tayib Ahmad, the Kurd leader.
     "We don't have any alliance with the Iraqi regime", he said.
"It is just a temporary arrangement. There is no formal agreement
between us and the Iraqi government. We made an appeal and the
Iraqi government responded. When it is over, they will pull out
their troops. Already there are no more Iraqi troops in the
center of Erbil."
     Ahmad, a 42-year-old former guerrilla, is a senior member of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party's 32-member central committee. He
has served as governor of Dohuk province since 1991, when the
United States and its allies made the province part of a
protected zone for Kurds in northern Iraq.
     There were signs Wednesday that the partnership of
convenience would not prove of universal benefit to the Kurds
living in northern Iraq. Aid workers said that in the hours after
Iraqi soldiers stormed into Erbil, security forces systematically
rounded up Kurds allied with the party most vehemently opposed to
Saddam.
     In some of the first reports from Erbil since the fall of
the city, aid workers who witnessed this weekend's Iraqi assault
said Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish guerrillas allied with Saddam
arrested scores, perhaps hundreds of people. Their fate is
unknown.
     Five years of protection by the United States has
undoubtedly saved the lives of many Kurds in northern Iraq, but
it has not made this a pleasant place to live. People here are
effectively prisoners in a land of treeless plateaus and rugged
mountains, unable to travel to other parts of Iraq and unwelcome
in neighboring countries.
     Dohuk is today a forlorn place, and the border town of Zahko
is even less appealing. For a brief period after 1991, Zahko
enjoyed an economic boom because hundreds of U.S. soldiers were
stationed here. It has long since slipped back into sun-baked
sleepiness.
     At midday Wednesday the only movement on the dusty streets
was from a handful of Kurdish guerrillas driving about in
Mercedes-Benz sedans and three youths trying without success to
push a cart laden with sacks of Turkish detergent up a steep
hill.
     A sign at the border crossing that reads "Welcome to
Kurdistan" seems a cruel joke. All the Kurds have to show for
generations of struggle is a parched parcel of land surrounded by
enemies and dependent for survival on the charity of increasingly
frustrated Americans and other foreigners.
     In the interview Wednesday, Ahmad brushed aside reminders
that Saddam's regime brutally suppressed Kurds in the past.
     "If someone can help solve our problems, we have no
objection", he said.
     The United States has refused to be drawn into the
increasingly bitter conflict between the Kurdistan Democratic
Party and northern Iraq's other Kurdish faction, the Democratic
Union of Kurdistan, which has forged ties to Iran.
     Senior American officials said this week that Ahmad's party
had seriously blundered. "They think they can manipulate the
Iraqis and they'll find that they are too powerful and too
ruthless to be manipulated", said Defense Secretary William Perry
on Tuesday in an interview with "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer"
on PBS.
     Ahmad asserted that U.S. forces should have stepped in after
the Democratic Union launched a joint operation with Iranian
troops inside Iraq earlier this summer.
     "We wanted the United States and other powers to do their
job and protect us", he said. "When there was no reaction from
the United States, the allies, or the European countries, we
asked Iraq to protect us."
     A statement issued Wednesday by the Kurdistan Democratic
Party suggested that it was not simply the Democratic Union's
recent cooperation with Iran, but also classic power rivalries
that prompted it to turn to Saddam's for help.
     The statement, issued in the name of Massoud Barzani, the
top party leader, charged that the Patriotic Union had been using
"violence and terror" against Democratic Party members in Erbil
for more than two years. It accused the Patriotic Union of
"filthy play" and of launching "aggressive actions and dangerous
plots against us."
     "The party made use of its legal right to self-defense and
asked for limited legal support from anybody anywhere", Barzani's
statement said. "The Iraqi government, gracefully, responded."
     Aid workers said Wednesday that the Iraqi army's role was
anything but graceful.
     "Iraqi forces were going through our neighborhood and taking
people away", one aid worker said. "I was watching them. There
were people who were against Saddam or his party in one way or
another, or people who might have said something negative about
the KDP.
     "A lot of people were getting dragged out of houses. They
went systematically house to house. I know people who said
something five years ago, and since then not a single word, not a
single action. They got their doors knocked on and were taken
away. These people don't forget."
     Another aid worker said he doubted that Iraqi soldiers had
withdrawn from Erbil.
     "The security forces are still there, some of them
undercover", he said. "A lot of local people who work for aid
agencies are very, very, very frightened."
     Jeremy Anderson, an Australian architect who was working in
Erbil for the Wisconsin-based aid group Shelter Now, said he had
heard from Kurdish associates in Erbil that his office had been
ransacked.
     "Five minutes after we left", he said, Iraqi forces "came
rolling through our office door."

Saddam's Allies Solidify Control Of Kurdish City

By Jonathan C. Randal

Irbil, Iraq (Washington Post - September 5, 1996) Militia units
of the Kurdish Democratic Party wielded Kalashnikov automatic
rifles as they patrolled this conquered city today, cruising the
empty boulevards in pickup trucks. Shops were closed, and not
many residents had summoned the courage to venture out.
     The Iraqi troops whose intervention on the side of the
militiamen won the battle for Irbil - and sparked the latest
crisis between the United States and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein
- were nowhere to be seen. The few Irbil residents willing to
talk about the Iraqi soldiers said they had left town on Tuesday;
nobody seemed to know where they had gone.
     The buildings that housed the provisional government in the
Kurdish "safe haven" of northern Iraq were pocked with shell
holes and strewn with broken glass and debris. Otherwise,
however, this city of 750,000 looked remarkably intact just days
after a massive Iraqi military offensive ousted one Kurdish
faction - the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal
Talabani - in favor of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and its
leader, Massoud Barzani.
     But it was clear that a change had taken place. At
Talabani's former headquarters, which had been painted his
trademark green, a Kurdish Democratic Party guerrilla was busy
applying thick coats of yellow paint - Barzani's color.
     Factional infighting has long been a fact of life among the
Kurds of northern Iraq and the five neighboring countries they
populate, and Irbil's residents know that today's winners may be
tomorrow's losers.
     They also know that careless words can prove deadly. No one
here was willing to volunteer a description of the fighting in
which Irbil changed hands, and few were willing to attach their
names to an opinion of whether the change was good or bad.
     "If the PUK is here, we like the PUK; if the KDP is here, we
like the KDP", said Sardar Mustafa, who tended one of the few
stores open for business, a shop near Irbil's historic citadel
that offered a meager selection of cheap belts and pants.
     Over the years, Saddam has sought to enforce his rule in the
north by razing hundreds of Kurdish villages and killing tens of
thousands of Kurds - many with the wholesale use of poison gas.
The specter of Barzani's party - formerly Saddam's bitter enemy
-- fighting as an ally of the Iraqi army seems to have deeply
shocked the people of Irbil, and interviews today reflected their
confusion. Some people said they were more devoted than ever to
one or the other Kurdish faction; others said they were convinced
that the future of the Kurds lay within the Iraqi state.
     There was no water or electricity in the city; Talabani's
defeated forces, which control the power plant at the Dukan Dam
south of Irbil, apparently cut off both in retaliation for their
defeat. A local service industry of hand-made water carts has
grown up overnight, and women could be seen walking miles to
fetch water.
     U.N. representatives were shuttling between the opposing
factions in an effort to restore power, and an Iraqi engineer
appeared in mid-morning to study the possibility of linking Irbil
to the Iraqi power grid. Barzani threatened unspecified military
action unless Talabani's forces agreed to restore electricity.
     Iraqi opposition sources in London and elsewhere in the West
have relayed allegations of atrocities by the the Iraqi army in
its seizure of Irbil, including what they say were scores of
executions. No evidence of such executions was apparent here
today, as Barzani's militiamen seemed determined to put their
best foot forward with the populace. At one point, militiamen
manning a checkpoint at an entrance to the city trained their
automatic weapons on fellow guerrillas seeking to pass; they said
they would not allow anyone else bearing arms to enter the city
for fear of generalized looting.
     Sami Aburrahman, a senior Kurdish Democratic Party official,
described his party's military campaign as a "very limited
operation" that so far had created only "very tolerable
consequences." Still, he and his colleagues were obviously
delighted by their achievement. Aburrahman, in a mocking tone,
kept repeating Talabani's familiar taunt that the "only way the
KDP would see Irbil was through very big binoculars."
     While most of the city was spared serious damage in the
fighting, the same could not be said of many Patriotic Union
offices or the homes of its leaders, which appeared to have been
systematically looted. At Talabani's once carefully appointed
two-story villa on Irbil's northern outskirts, the only furniture
still visible consisted of three tables and three sofas, all
parked on the lawn. Flowers and grass previously tended by
Talabani's wife, Hero, were withered from lack of water. A heavy
steel safe, its open doors riddled with bullet marks, lay on its
side.
     Inside, broken glass littered the floors. So thorough had
been the looters' frenzy that the library, computer room, kitchen
and bedrooms were all stripped bare. In Talabani's office, once
lined with photographs of him posing with generations of Middle
Eastern leaders, sat a bathtub that someone had ripped from an
adjoining bathroom but apparently found too heavy to cart off.
     The parliament and government buildings had suffered much
the same fate, with a refrigerator abandoned in one entrance, a
heavy air conditioner in another. Upstairs in the government
building - where Saddam's police worked during his army's brief
occupation of the city - a stale odor of unflushed toilets wafted
through the halls.

Iraqi Kurdish Factions Clash Near Key Bridge

Arbil, Iraq (Reuter - September 5, 1996) Rival Kurdish factions
clashed near a strategic bridge at the village of Degala as Iraqi
government troops stood by, U.N. guards and foreign aid workers
said Thursday.
     Their radio reports from the field, monitored in the
northern Iraqi city of Arbil, said fighting was heavy between
forces of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
     Iraqi troops, backed by armor, were in place nearby but did
not intervene, the reports said. Last weekend Baghdad's forces
helped the KDP eject PUK fighters from Arbil.
     "There has been big resistance", Shazad Saib, a PUK
spokesman in Turkey, told Reuters. He said Iraqi forces were
taking part in the KDP operation.
     U.N. guards also reported scattered fighting around Halabja
near the Iranian border, where a small band of KDP peshmerga
guerrillas were reported to be surrounded by PUK units. The area
is generally under the control of a Kurdish Islamist militia.
     Degala is on the road south to Koi Sanjak, which protects
the approaches to the PUK stronghold of Sulaimaniya, 100 miles
southeast of Arbil.
     It is also on the road to the Dukan Dam, held by PUK
guerrillas who have cut the flow of water and power into Arbil.
     KDP leader Massoud Barzani told reporters Wednesday his
forces were prepared to take the dam if utilities were not
restored soon.

Turkey Seeks Security Zone In North Iraq
Border Strip Would Curb Kurdish Guerrilla Raids

By Kelly Couturier

Ankara, Turkey (Washington Post - September 4, 1996) Turkey seeks
to set up a security zone in northern Iraq to stop Kurdish
separatists from launching attacks across the border into Turkey,
U.S. and Turkish officials said today.
     The planned zone has become particularly necessary, Turkish
sources explained, because of instability in the Kurdish region
of northern Iraq caused by fighting between rival factions of
Iraqi Kurds and intervention by Iranian and Iraqi troops.
     The security zone - in effect, a border strip of Iraqi
territory controlled by the Turkish army - would extend from
three to six miles inside northern Iraq, the Reuter news agency
quoted a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
     U.S. officials in Washington said Turkey has raised the plan
with the United States and that no formal response has been
given. But one administration official said that in initial
discussions the United States did not oppose Ankara's plan. A
State Department spokesman, Glyn Davies, said Washington will
assess the plan "in the broader framework of regional stability",
Reuter reported.
     The administration official said Washington's partial green
light to Turkey reflects its policy of granting latitude to
Ankara in its fight against the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK,
which has been waging guerrilla war against it for 12 years.
     Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller told reporters that
PKK guerrillas are massing along the 150-mile border and could
infiltrate into Turkey. "We have to stop these infiltrations",
Ciller said, adding that Turkey will take the "necessary
measures." Ankara will "evaluate what measures it will take with
neighboring countries", she said.
     In recent years, the PKK frequently has used northern Iraq's
rugged terrain as a staging base for attacks across the border,
benefiting from the breakdown of authority in the
Kurdish-controlled "no-fly zone." Iraqi authority has been absent
from the northern region since after the 1991 Persian Gulf War,
when the United States and its allies started Operation Provide
Comfort to protect the rebellious Kurds from Baghdad's forces.
     Turkey was faced with an influx of Kurdish refugees after
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein cracked down on the Iraqi Kurds
after their rebellion at the close of the gulf war. But it agreed
to allow Operation Provide Comfort to be based at its Incirlik
air base. Since then, however, opposition to the
U.S.-British-French mission that patrols the no-fly zone has
increased, with opponents arguing that the lack of central
authority in northern Iraq hampers Turkey's fight against the
PKK.
     The recent fighting between Iraqi Kurdish factions has
enabled to PKK even more freedom to operate, Turkish sources
said.
     "Each time there's fighting between the Iraqi Kurds, the PKK
benefits", one Turkish source said, adding that Ankara has failed
in its efforts to enlist any of the Iraqi Kurdish groups to help
fight the PKK.
     Frequent incursions by the Turkish military into northern
Iraq, including a 35,000-troop operation in March 1995, have
failed to flush out the guerrillas. 

Turkish Troops Ready Northern Iraq Strike

Diyarbakir, Turkey (Reuter - September 5, 1996) Turkish troops,
backed by air power, could launch an attack against Kurdish
separatist rebels in northern Iraq at any time, a high-ranking
military official said Thursday.
     Witnesses said heavy military preparations were under way
near Turkey's porous border with Iraq.
     "There is the possibility of a sudden air-backed assault
into nothern Iraq. We are thinking of hitting the enemy
(Kurdistan Workers Party rebels) all of a sudden without giving
it the chance of protection", the military official, who declined
to be identified, told Reuters by telephone.
     The army official would not say when the operation could
take place as he did not want the PKK to prepare itself.
     "We know that two-thirds of PKK power and its training
centres are established in northern Iraq", he said.
     Any Turkish drive into Iraq would further complicate the
already tangled politics of the Kurdish-populated region, which
stretches through southeastern Turkey, northeast Syria, northern
Iraq and western Iran.
     At the weekend, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sent troops
into Arbil, the main Kurdish city in northern Iraq, in support of
one of two Iraqi Kurdish factions.
     The United States responded with a pair of cruise missile
attacks on targets in southern Iraq.
     The stepped-up activity in Turkey follows Ankara's
announcement it was preparing to set up a security cordon inside
northern Iraq to halt Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
infiltration.
     A foreign ministry spokesman said the zone would be five or
10 km (three to six miles) deep.
     Turkey sent 35,000 troops 40 km (25 miles) into northern
Iraq in March 1995 for a six-week operation to hit PKK targets.
     A ministry spokesman said Turkey would use "all necessary
measures" to protect its borders: "But there is no operation (in
Iraq) at the moment", he said.
     President Suleyman Demirel was scheduled to meet Chief of
Staff Ismail Hakki Karadayi and Interior Minister Mehmet Agar
later Thursday, the president's office said.
     Witnesses said busloads of troops headed for the region from
the regional center of Diyarbakir and jets patrolled the skies.
     "I have not seen tanks but soldiers have been carried out in
buses all day, and I heard the sounds of patrolling jets
overhead", said one resident.
     So far there were no indications that Turkish forces had
crossed the border, an increasingly frequent tactic in Turkey's
12-year-old battle with the PKK.
     PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan called his supporters to war
against the Turkish state.
     "The fascist Turkish colonialists have decided to invade
southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq). They could invade at any
moment", he told the Germany-based pro-Kurdish news agency.
     "All our freedom fighters must be on the highest state of
alert for the sacred war", Ocalan said in a statement.
     "We don't have any information about anything like that",
said a spokesman for the General Staff, asked about the prospects
for a Turkish operation into northern Iraq.
     "If we had planned such an operation, we would not be
announcing it to the whole world."
     Turkish media, however, were not so cautious.
     "The armed forces will enter northern Iraq and stay there",
proclaimed the leading daily Sabah in a frontpage headline.
     "Ankara is gearing up for a radical solution", Sabah said.
     The Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which now holds
Arbil, said it had informed Ankara of its worries about increased
PKK activity in the area. The PKK and the KDP have clashed
periodically in northern Iraq as the PKK tries to establish
itself as a power.
     "We feel very much concerned about that. I would say that
(Turkey) would be justified in eliminating the troubles", Faik
Nerweyi, a KDP Turkey representative, told Reuters.
     But he refused to say whether an operation by the Turks was
to take place or whether the KDP would condone it.