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KurdistanObserver.com
Kurdish Guerrilla Leader Says Defeat Awaits Turkey's
Military In Southern Kurdistan
Associated Press Writer
July 22, 2007
LEWZHE, (Southern Kurdistan) The commander of Iraq-based
Kurdish rebels said he believed Turkey will quickly follow its parliamentary
elections Sunday with a long-anticipated offensive against his remote mountain
bases.
Murat Karayilan, the leader of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK,
warned that his fighters were prepared for battle, but denied Ankara's charges
that his group was using Iraqi soil to launch attacks against Turkish forces
across the border.
"The date of the Turkish offensive has drawn near," Karayilan told The
Associated Press in an interview Friday at his base in the remote northern Iraqi
village of Lewzhe. "We are ready to confront it and to defend ourselves. The
Turkish army cannot move with ease in this mountainous terrain."
Turkey has been fighting PKK rebels since 1984 in a war that has killed tens of
thousands.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose party won a new mandate
Sunday, has threatened to stage an incursion into northern Iraq if post-election
talks with Iraq and the United States fail to produce effective measures against
the Kurdish guerrillas.
Erdogan told jubilant supporters in a victory speech in Ankara that: "In our
struggle against separatist terrorists, we are determined to take every step at
the right time."
Opposition parties have criticized his ruling party for not showing
determination to stage an incursion, a move that could seriously strain ties
with Iraq and Turkey's NATO ally, the United States. The United States, facing
problems elsewhere in Iraq, opposes such a move, but Turkey, frustrated by
escalating rebel violence, says Washington has reneged on promises to help it
fight terrorism.
Karayilan said that the autonomous Kurdish government in Iraq was not supporting
his group. He described his group's bases in northern Iraq as primarily
political indoctrination centers. An AP reporter, however, saw PKK guerrillas
training on the use of light arms and doing endurance drills in full combat gear
as he made his way to Lewzhe.
"The arms market and merchants are our main sources of weapons," said Karayilan
who said that his guerrillas recently ambushed and commandeered an Iranian
truckload of weapons that was on its way to Lebanon. He said he commands about
10,000 people.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has protested to Ankara over
cross-border shelling of Iraqi territory by the Turkish army and repeatedly
called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Al-Maliki has received an
invitation from Erdogan to visit Turkey, but no date has been set.
Karayilan charged that any Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq would
be intended to thwart efforts by Iraq's Kurds to annex the oil-rich city of
Kirkuk.
Kirkuk's Arab and Turkoman residents reject Kurdish claims to Kirkuk. Iraq's
constitution stipulates that a referendum on the fate of Kirkuk must be held in
the city before the end of the year, which would likely be won by Kurds, raising
Turkish concerns that it would fuel separatist sentiment at home.
"If the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan wins Kirkuk, that will be a huge
economic asset," said Karayilan. "So, an incursion into Iraq will not take place
because of our bases but because of Turkey's concerns about the Kurdish entity
in Iraq." |
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