Mainstream news on Kurdish war

kurdeng at aps.nl kurdeng at aps.nl
Wed May 24 19:08:39 BST 1995


From: tabe at newsdesk.aps.nl
Subject: Mainstream news on Kurdish war
Reply-To: kurdeng at aps.nl

Kurdish chief talks of political solution to war

By Haitham Haddadin

IN THE BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon, May 23 (Reuter) - Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah
Ocalan called on Tuesday for a ceasefire in the separatist war with Turkey and
said he was ready for peace if Ankara was ready for a political solution.

"I am saying if the Turkish state stops operations against us and if they are
ready for a political solution, then we are ready for a ceasefire or peace as
an organisation," Ocalan, who heads the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), told
Reuters in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

"If Ankara continues its campaign against the Kurdish people, the Kurdish
people will fight," Ocalan said. "The Turkish state should stop all military
destruction against us and be ready for a political solution." He said Ankara's
efforts to impose a military solution in the Kurdish conflict could never work.

Asked if a 1993 threat he made to wage all-out war on Turkey, including attacks
on tourist sites, was still on the PKK agenda, Ocalan replied: "Since the
Turkish state declared a whole war against us, we are having a whole war
against the Turkish state... We are having a war to hurt the Turkish economy
and to let it be known internationally that there is a war in Turkey and that
the Turkish state is not a tourist area."

Ocalan, with the PKK red banner behind him, said Turkish forces had destroyed
all economic potential in Kurdistan. "They even burn horses and homes...not
even Kurdish names are allowed in Turkey," said Ocalan, speaking in Turkish.

Dismissing Ankara's recent campaign launched with 35,000 troops against his
guerrillas in northern Iraq as a failure, Ocalan said he suspected Turkey might
repeat the operation.

"Our presence in northern Iraq is strong...They (Turkish troops) feel the need
to enter northern Iraq to be successful," Ocalan said. "They are preparing a
bigger operation.

"The PKK presence in northern Iraq became larger as a result of the operation.
We established many important strategic places," Ocalan said. "We managed to
draw people's attention to us."

Turkey declared the northern Iraqi campaign, which ended on May 2, as a
complete success, saying 555 PKK fighters and 61 soldiers died. Ocalan said
Ankara reversed the actual casualty figures. He put Turkish deaths at 800
against 60 PKK dead.

Turkish military sources said on Monday the number of troops in Turkey's
eastern Tunceli province would be boosted to 45,000 as part of the army's bid
to finish off the Kurdish rebels.

Ocalan warned the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraqi Kurdish chief Massoud
Barzani against joining Turkish forces in the war against the PKK, saying they
would be finished if they did.

He said Ankara had offered the KDP control of strategic points along the
Turkish-Iraqi border to stop cross-frontier raids by the PKK. "I don't think
Barzani will accept," he added.

Reuters correspondents were driven from Beirut to a secret PKK location in the
Bekaa Valley for the interview with Ocalan, and waited for hours before he
showed up with three bodyguards armed with AK-47 assault rifles.

Kurdish chief plays cloak & dagger with press

By Haitham Haddadin

IN THE BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon, May 23 (Reuter) - Interviews in which guerrilla
chief Abdullah Ocalan called on Tuesday for a ceasefire in the Kurds'
separatist war with Turkey were to have been held in a Beirut hotel, but
reporters knew better.

A long-distance caller said the meeting would be in a luxury hostelry,
but when reporters met up with the elusive guerrilla leader it was after
another cloak-and-dagger trek to eastern Lebanon's Syrian-policed Bekaa
Valley -- a haven for Moslem militants and leftist groups during Lebanon's
1975-90 civil war.

Times have changed for the husky, coarse-voiced Marxist chief of the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) since he was declared persona non grata by
Beirut in 1993.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri no longer wants PKK guerrillas
preparing in Lebanon for attacks in Turkey and has vowed that if Ocalan is
caught he will be thrown out.

Our guide, who identified himself as a PKK supporter, would not disclose
the venue but told us at the hotel lobby to drive behind him to a Bekaa town
an hour after a 2 p.m. interview deadline had passed.

The town he named was another decoy. When we finally arrived at the actual
site we waited for two more hours at a modest house before Ocalan, dressed in
a khaki shirt, showed up with three bodyguards brandishing AK-47 machineguns.

"We are sorry for the inconvenience but this is for security reasons," the
soft-spoken guide, who declined to be named, said in broken Arabic.

The moustachoied Ocalan, raising his fist in the air often as he spoke,
rapped the United States saying it was pressuring Syria and Iran -- where
600,000 and 3.5 million Kurds live respectively -- to stop supporting the
PKK.

Sitting with the red PKK guerrilla flag behind him, it seemed almost ironic
that he spoke in Turkish not Kurdish, a language he says the Turks are trying
to ban.

He told reporters he was ready for peace if Ankara was ready for a political
solution to the separatist campaign that has killed 15,000 people since 1984.
Turkey has responded by saying it would not negotiate with terrorists.

At New Rouz festivities marking the Kurdish new year, PKK guerrillas usually
wave pictures of Ocalan, known to them as "Apo," and chant "Biji Apo, Biji PKK
(Long Live Apo, Long Live PKK)."

After the interview, the Kurdish guide politely asked our driver to bring the
car close to the house so the television crew could put the camera in the boot
and not arouse suspicions among Lebanese neighbours.

Euro MPs to discuss democracy in Turkey

ANKARA, May 23 (Reuter) - A group of leftist European parliamentarians
arrived in Ankara on Tuesday to discuss Turkish-European relations, strained
by human rights issues and Ankara's recent attacks on rebel Kurds in northern
Iraq.

Socialist Group leader Pauline Green and Catherine Lalumiere, head of the
European Radical Alliance, told Anatolian news agency on their arrival they
hoped to meet Prime Minister Tansu Ciller, some ministers and other
parliamentarians during their trip.

"We will have the opportunity to tell them just how weak relations between the
European Parliament, the European Union and Turkey are at the moment," Green
said. She said they would be making enquiries about democracy reforms urged by
the West, and long-promised by Ankara.

Cabinet minister Necmettin Cevheri said last Thursday Turkey had delayed
plans to ease a law restricting freedom of expression, part of the reforms,
until after local by-elections in June.

The European Parliament has warned it will veto a planned customs union between
Turkey and the European Union in the autumn unless Turkey improves its human
rights and democracy record.

Lalumiere said the end on May 2 of Turkey's six-week incursion into northern
Iraq was welcome, but merely a factor in what she called the generally
"saddening" state of Turkey-Europe ties.

Claudia Roth, leader of the Greens group, is also expected to join the trip,
which ends on Thursday.




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