Mainstream News On Recent Turkish I

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.etext.org>
Subject: Mainstream News On Recent Turkish Invasion Of South Kurdistan

Turks Bomb Kurdish Rebels In Iraq

Diyarbakir, Turkey (October 1, 1997) Turkish jets bombed fleeing
Kurdish guerrillas near Iraq's mountainous border with Iran on
Wednesday, Anatolian news agency said.
     The news agency said warplanes bombed the rebels of the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as Turkish troops pursued them
eastward after capturing the PKK's main base at Zab on Tuesday.
     Backed by air power, Turkish forces attacked three other
camps near the Turkish border in an effort to dislodge the
guerrillas, the state-run agency said.
     Witnesses said six F-16 jets took off from a military base
near the city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey heading for
northern Iraq.
     About 15,000 Turkish troops supported by Kurdish militia
forces entered Iraq last week in a push that has angered Baghdad,
which lost control of northern Iraq to Iraqi Kurdish groups after
the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
     Planes have raided PKK targets all week. The PKK uses bases
in north Iraq in its fight for self-rule in neighboring Turkey.
Iraq's Kurdistan Democratic Party is allied with Turkey in this
fight.

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13 Kurdish Rebels Killed In Northern Iraq

Ankara, Turkey (AP - September 28, 1997) An Iraqi Kurdish group
allied with the Turkish government said Sunday it had killed 13
Turkish Kurdish rebels in recent clashes.
     Ten other rebels have been injured in the fighting near the
Iraqi-Turkish border, said the radio of the Kurdistan Democratic
Party, or KDP, monitored by Turkey's Anatolia news agency.
     The radio report gave no KDP casualty figures.
     A Turkish military operation involving 20,000 soldiers and
aimed at destroying the camps of autonomy-seeking rebels of the
Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, has been under way for a week.
     The KDP recently took sides with the Turkish army against
the PKK.
     A military official said Sunday that 138 rebels had been
killed by Turkish troops. The official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said six Turkish soldiers had died in the fighting.
     The rebels launch cross-border attacks at Turkish targets
from bases in northern Iraq, an area which has been taken out of
Iraqi government control since the Gulf War and is now monitored
by Western planes.

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Turkey Attacks Kurdish Rebels In Iraqi Territory

By Kelly Couturier

Ankara, Turkey (The Washington Post - September 26, 1997)_Turkish
warplanes bombed rebel Kurd positions inside Iraq today in a new
cross-border offensive that officials said is aimed at preventing
the rebels from regrouping in camps along the border.
     The offensive, launched earlier this week and reportedly
involving an estimated 8,000 ground troops and 100 tanks and
other armored vehicles, is the latest in a series of Turkish
attacks against Kurdish Workers' Party guerrillas on Iraqi
territory over the past few years.
     The latest operation was launched, according to a Foreign
Ministry spokesman, because Kurdish guerrillas who had been
cleared from the area during a large-scale attack last May and
June were trying to reestablish positions along the mountainous
border before the winter sets in. The separatist guerrillas, who
have been waging an armed insurgency in southeastern Turkey since
1984, have often launched attacks from bases in
Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.
     Military spokesmen were unavailable for comment, but the
government-owned Anatolian news agency reported that jets bombed
15 guerrilla positions near the Iranian and Syrian borders, where
the insurgents reportedly had fled the Turkish attack last
spring. The guerrillas reportedly had filtered back into the
border areas despite efforts to keep them out by an armed Iraqi
Kurdish faction allied with Ankara, the Kurdistan Democratic
Party.
     The new Turkish attack reportedly is aimed at cutting off
the rebels' flight toward Iran and Syria. Turkey has barred
journalists from entering northern Iraq since early this year,
making impossible independent confirmation of official Turkish
statements on the offensive.
     In recent years Ankara has asserted its right, as a matter
of national security, to enter Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq
in pursuit of the guerrillas. More than 26,000 people have been
killed in the 13-year insurgency.
     "Turkey has a terrorism problem originating in northern
Iraq", Foreign Ministry spokesman Sermet Atacanli told reporters.
"We regularly take measures deemed necessary for our security."
He described the latest operation as "routine and limited".
     Baghdad, which has strongly criticized past Turkish
incursions, also protested Ankara's latest move.
     "The Republic of Iraq strongly condemns the new Turkish
military aggression which represents a flagrant violation of
Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity", an Iraqi Foreign
Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the ruling Baath Party
newspaper al-Thawra.
     Baghdad has been denied authority over predominantly Kurdish
northern Iraq since a U.S.-led "no-fly" zone was set up following
the 1991 Persian Gulf War to protect the Kurdish population from
the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The enclave has
been controlled since then by two rival Iraqi Kurdish groups,
which have clashed intermittently, at times drawing Baghdad and
Tehran into the conflict.

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