Kurds Demand Removal Of Turkish Bases in Iraqi Kurdistan
ARBIL, Southern Kurdistan, Feb 26, 2008 (AFP) - Iraqi Kurds, including the
regional parliament, on Tuesday demanded the closure of Turkish bases that have
been inside Iraqi territory for more than a decade in the face of an incursion
by Turkish troops against Kurdish rebels.
Kurdish commanders invited the Turkish military to set up bases on Iraqi soil
amid fighting between rival Iraqi Kurdish factions in the 1990s when executed
dictator Saddam Hussein was still in power in Baghdad.
Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the regional government, said on Sunday
that an agreement had been in force since 1997 to allow the Turks to have four
military bases inside the Kurdish region.
But on Tuesday, the regional parliament approved a resolution calling on the
regional government to demand the closure of the bases.
"We demand that the Turkish government leave the bases which were established in
the Kurdistan region due to the exceptional circumstances the region experienced
before the fall of the former regime," the resolution read.
The regional parliament also condemned the incursion that Turkish troops
launched on Thursday against rear-bases of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK), which has waged a bloody campaign for self-rule in southeastern Turkey
since 1984.
The resolution demanded that "the American government protect Iraqi sovereignty
and the skies above the Kurdistan region."
There have been mounting tensions around the four bases at Barmeni, Girilok,
Kanimasi and Sircy since Turkish troops crossed the border.
A top aide of regional president Massud Barzani said troops had left the Barmeni
base, 45 kilometres (30 miles) north of the city of Dohuk, in tanks on Thursday
as the incursion began.
The Turkish force had no permission from the regional government and it was
stopped by the Kurds' peshmerga militia, Barzani's chief of staff, Fuad Hussein,
added.
Kamal Mohammed Abd al-Rahim, 55, said he had been among the peshmerga who had
confronted the Turkish force.
"We told them we are not allowing you to pass and you can go only over our dead
bodies," he said.
"We don't want them to stay here, but what shall we do? They should be forced
out by the Kurdish leadership."
Local resident Abu Shihab denied that there were any PKK fighters in the area
for the Turkish troops to hunt down.
"I call them devils and if they are searching for the PKK ... then they are not
here," he said.
Local farm mechanic, Yasin Ahmed, 37, expressed similar hostility to the
presence of the Turkish base.
"When I see these Turkish soldiers moving around, I feel like I am seeing an
enemy. I want them to leave," said Ahmed, who can see the base from his hilltop
workshop.
"We are afraid they may also participate in the incursion and inflict more harm
on us."
