Release Of 6 To Turkey Opens Door W

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Release Of 6 To Turkey Opens Door With Rebels

Release Of 6 To Turkey Opens Door With Rebels

By Stephen Kinzer

Istanbul, Turkey (New York Times - December 15, 1996) The
recently negotiated release of six Turkish soldiers captured by
Kurdish rebels appears to reflect at least the beginning of a
change in thinking about a conflict that has seemed likely to
drag on forever.
     Until lately, both the government and the rebels have
insisted that their single goal is military victory and that no
nonmilitary solution to the conflict is possible.
     But in recent months, the rebel leader, Abdullah Ocalan, has
been quoted as saying that he would settle for autonomy rather
than full independence for Turkey's Kurdish region in the
southeast.
     He told a French newspaper that he had been contacted by
Turkey's new prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, but Erbakan has
not acknowledged making any such overture.
     Still, the prime minister has said he hopes to ease the
terms of emergency rule under which much of the southeast is
governed. Last week, the government was reportedly considering
some form of amnesty for Kurdish prisoners.
     Political and military leaders have resolutely refused to
deal with the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the PKK,
for any purpose, including negotiating the release of prisoners.
     A member of parliament who traveled to PKK strongholds in
northern Iraq three months ago to seek the release of prisoners
was bitterly denounced and threatened with prosecution when he
returned.
     The politician, Fethullah Erbas, a member of the governing
Welfare Party, was unsuccessful that time. But last week he went
back to northern Iraq. This time he was successful, returning
with six young men who had been held prisoner for more than a
year.
     "I have done my duty not in the name of any party, but as a
citizen", he said, "and I have done it in spite of criticism from
many quarters."
     Among those who criticized Erbas was Yasar Okuyan, a leading
member of parliament from the opposition Motherland Party.
     "No one and no organization in Turkey should make deals with
the PKK", Okuyan said. "The PKK is a murderous organization that
kills our soldiers, our police officers and even our women and
children. I violently object to this."
     The government and the press, which covers the conflict
according to unwritten rules laid down by the military, portray
the PKK as a terrorist organization financed principally by
heroin smuggling. Police officials in several West European
countries also believe the PKK is heavily involved in drug
trafficking; the party denies it.
     On Tuesday, an Istanbul daily, Yeni Yuzyil, which says it
has obtained secret documents related to the government's use of
death squads to fight the rebels, published what it said was a
report showing that in 1994, Tansu Ciller, then the prime
minister, authorized a payment of more than $2 million to a
Turkish gunman for an operation aimed at killing Ocalan, the
rebel leader.
     Last month the gunman, Abdullah Catli, died along with a
senior police official in a car crash that has set off a major
scandal here. Mrs. Ciller has not commented on the report.
     Government leaders and Turkish journalists routinely refer
to PKK combatants as terrorists, and they described the six
captured soldiers as hostages, carefully avoiding the use of the
word "prisoner."
     "They have an underlying reason for this", said the chairman
of the Ankara-based Human Rights Association, Akin Birdal, who
was part of the delegation that traveled to northern Iraq to
arrange the soldiers' release. "If they accepted that the Turkish
soldiers were POWs, then they would have to consider people who
had fought for the other side as POWs as well, which would force
them to act within the boundaries of international law."
     A handful of Turkish soldiers captured by the PKK have been
released in the past without ceremony. But this week's group
release was the first known to have been the result of
negotiation.
     Last week, the three negotiators met in Ankara and then
traveled secretly to the Iraqi city of Dohuk, where the
prisoners' relatives had been camped out for weeks hoping for
their release. There they met PKK members who brought them and
the relatives to a camp near the Iraqi town of Amadiya.
     "The camp is established in rocky hills and mighty caves,
resembling an eagle's lair", wrote a Turkish journalist who was
present, adding: "The beating of hearts seemed noisy enough to
move the rocks around, when the commander of the camp told the
families to come out of the tents as the soldiers had arrived.
Then the soldiers were restored to their families. The scene at
the gathering brought a tear to everyone's eyes."