*Turkey
Tracking Reports Top Kurdish Rebel in Iran
Reuters
ANKARA, April 3 — Turkey said on Wednesday it was pursuing reports
that a senior Kurdish rebel was in custody in Iran and had asked Iranian
authorities to hand him over if they were holding him.
Iran and sources close to the rebel Kurdish group dismissed the reports.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Huseyin Dirioz said Turkey had been tracking
information on top Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) official Cemil Bayik,
whom Ankara considers a ''terrorist.''
Turkish media said on Wednesday that Bayik, a senior figure in the
council that runs the PKK in Ocalan's absence, was in custody in the western
Iranian city of Urumiyeh.
''From time to time there are such reports in the press. This is understood
as intelligence information. In the framework of this intelligence information,
of course our responsible officials are doing what's necessary,'' Dirioz
told reporters.
Iran denied the reports. ''It's a baseless report. If it was true we
would be the first to know about it and we don't have such a report,''
an Iranian Foreign Ministry official told Reuters in Tehran.
Kurdish sources in Europe, close to the PKK, also denied the reports.
The Turkish ambassador in Tehran said Ankara had made an official request
for Iran to hand over Bayik, but declined to say whether he had been arrested.
''It's not my place to say whether he has been captured or not,'' ambassador
Selahattin Alpar told Reuters. ''That is the duty of the Iranian authorities.''
Officially secular Turkey and Islamic Iran have never been comfortable
neighbours and frequently accuse one another of backing each other's opposition
groups.
But progress has recently been made on security cooperation and joint
action against rebels on both sides of their border.
Sources close to Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq told Reuters the
PKK had launched a new political party that would seek a democratic resolution
of the Kurdish question, and of other ethnic and religious issues.
The Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party, or PCDK, will be based in
northern Iraq but will be active in Kurdish areas in Turkey and Iran, according
to Kurdish satellite broadcaster Medya TV, which serves as a PKK mouthpiece.
The PKK said last month it would change its name to show it was now
seeking change through political means. |
