3 May 2006

1. "Turkish soldier killed by landmine", a Turkish soldier was killed Monday when he stepped on a landmine believed to have been planted by Kurdish rebels in the southeast of the country, the Anatolia news agency reported.

2. "Kurdistan: Dangerous Passage", Turkey embraces 'hot pursuit' in northern Iraq.

3. "US urges respect of Iraq sovereignty as Turkish troops mass", the US government on Tuesday called on Iraq's neighbors to respect its territorial sovereignty as Turkey massed thousands of troops along its border with northern Iraq.

4. "Concern Rising About Kurdish Discontent In Southeastern Turkey", an upsurge in attacks against Turkish security forces by militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and a recent three-day outbreak of protests in Turkey's primarily-Kurdish southeast are raising concerns that the region could again spiral into the kind of violence experienced during the dark days of the 1980's and 1990's.

5. "Iraq accuses Iran of border violations", inhabitants of Iraq's border areas backed the bombing claim.

6. "Kurdish families flee as Iran shells rebel positions", about 200 families fled their homes on the Iraq-Iran border on Monday as Iranian forces shelled areas used by Iranian-Kurdish rebels, according to Kurdish officials.

1. - AFP - "Turkish soldier killed by landmine":

ANKARA / 1 May 2006

A Turkish soldier was killed Monday when he stepped on a landmine believed to have been planted by Kurdish rebels in the southeast of the country, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The soldier was walking to his sentry point close to the paramilitary troop headquarters in Cukurca, Hakkari province, close to the border with Iraq, when the blast occurred, the report said.

Landmine attacks have become a hallmark of violence by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) since the group called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004 and the rebels started to penetrate Turkey from their bases in northern Iraq.

The Turkish army has recently amassed troops in the southeast, in areas along the borders with Iraq and Iran, to crack down on militants who cross over into Turkey with increasing frequency in the spring.

Turkey says an estimated 5,000 PKK rebels have found refuge in northern Iraq since 1999 when the group declared the ceasefire and withdrew from Turkey.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish-populated southeast of Turkey.

2. - Newsweek International - "Kurdistan: Dangerous Passage":

Turkey embraces 'hot pursuit' in northern Iraq.

May 8, 2006 issue / By Owen Matthews*

Could another front be opening in the Iraq war? Over recent weeks, some 200,000 Turkish troops, backed by tanks and helicopter gunships, have massed along the mountainous border with Iraq. Trucks passing from Turkey, ferrying the imported goods and foodstuffs that are the lifeblood of the Kurdish economy, have slowed from 1,000 a day to just a couple of hundred. The Turkish military says its troops are there only to prevent armed insurgents of the Kurdish PKK rebel group from crossing into Turkey from their bases on Iraq's Kandil Mountain. But last week, according to angry Foreign Ministry officials in Baghdad, Turkish commandos briefly crossed 15 kilometers into Iraqi territory in pursuit of PKK rebels—a move that could signal dangerous new frictions to come.

Compared with the rest of the country, Iraqi Kurdistan has been a haven of stability—still subject to insurgent bombings, but generally free of the kind of sectarian violence that has racked Baghdad and other major cities in recent weeks. But tensions are rising. Shia militiamen from Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army have begun moving into oil-rich Kirkuk, claimed as part of Kurdistan. In neighboring Iran last month some 10,000 troops attacked PKK-affiliated rebels who defy Tehran's rule in the region. And the Turks have grown increasingly frustrated with the 5,000 guerrillas holed up at Kandil. Over the last two months, the PKK and its political affiliates have stepped up violence inside Turkey to levels not seen in a decade. At least eight government troops were killed in a series of ambushes in Turkey's southeast; two bombs linked to the PKK were planted in Istanbul and, last month, 14 civilians were killed as Kurdish cities all over the southeast erupted in violence.

Ankara is losing patience with the United States, which has promised to deal with the PKK problem. Last week Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, chief of the politically powerful General Staff, claimed that Turkey had the right to defend itself under the United Nations Charter, hinting strongly that the military was seriously considering hot-pursuit cross-border raids. (Before Saddam was toppled in 2003, Turkish troops used to cross the border regularly chasing the PKK, often with the connivance of local Iraqi Kurdish groups which had their own differences with the PKK.) And Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Ankara last week to try to defuse the crisis, that "we expect the U.S. to do more and to be more active." In reply, Rice warned that any cross-border operations would have "a destabilizing effect" on Iraq's fragile security.

Washington is caught between two allies—NATO member Turkey, its closest friend in the Muslim world, and the Iraqi Kurds, its closest ally within Iraq. By rights, of course, dealing with the PKK "should be the responsibility of the Iraqi government," as a senior Iraqi official puts it, not wishing to speak publicly on security matters. "We will not allow any PKK attacks on [Turkey] from our soil. But the limits on the central government are obvious. According to one U.S. official, also not wishing to be quoted on such a sensitive topic, Washington has been trying to pressure Iraq's Kurds to crack down on the PKK themselves, before Ankara steps up its campaign. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has several points of leverage. One is that the Kurds are desperate to have a more or less permanent American military base on their territory as insurance against a future anti-Kurdish regime in Baghdad. Another is that the Kurds will need U.S. help to contain any Shia designs on oil-rich Kirkuk. Also, they need Washington's support in any deal on the parceling out of the country's future oil revenues.

So, the big question is why the Iraqi Kurds aren't cracking down on the PKK insurgents, with whom, after all, they once used to clash. One reason is that, under Saddam, the precarious autonomy of Iraq's Kurds was largely dependent on the good will of Ankara. That was ample incentive to keep the PKK in check. But today, Iraqi Kurds are much more confident. For the first time, they have their own nation in all but name—and are thus more willing to support the nationalistic aspirations of their 14 million countrymen living in Turkey. In words widely interpreted in Ankara as a veiled threat to support a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey if the cross-border raids continue, Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Regional Government, warned last week that if Turkey tries "to stop our people from profiting or progressing," then Turkey's own "stability and security" would suffer. That kind of talk is likely to reinforce Turkey's determination to stamp out the PKK once and for all—and take their war inside Iraq if necessary.

* With Sami Kohen in Istanbul, John Barry in Washington and Scott Johnson in Baghdad.

3. - AFP - "US urges respect of Iraq sovereignty as Turkish troops mass":

WASHINGTON / 2 May 2006

The US government on Tuesday called on Iraq's neighbors to respect its territorial sovereignty as Turkey massed thousands of troops along its border with northern Iraq.

A senior Turkish military officer, General Bekir Kalyoncu, said Tuesday that Ankara reserved the right to venture into Iraqi territory to pursue Kurdish rebels based there.

"We would call upon all of Iraq's neighbors to respect Iraq's sovereignty," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Turkey in late April to refrain from unilateral action against Iraq-based Kurdish rebels, calling instead for renewed trilateral cooperation to fight the threat.

Turkey has deployed thousands to troops along its border with Iraq in what officials describe as a large-scale bid to prevent infiltrations by rebels from the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), based in mountainous hideouts in northern Iraq.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Kurd officials have claimed that Iranian forces shelled Kurdish rebel positions for a second day on Monday, but Iran has refused to confirm or deny the shelling reports and claims that Iranian troops had entered Iraq.

McCormack also called on Iraq's neighbors "to work with the government of Iraq on any issues that they may have regarding borders and that anything that is done is done in a transparent manner and through mutual agreement".

The Turkish general said:"If the conditions (for a cross-border operation) arise, Turkey will use its rights as any sovereign country."

The Turkish army says Article 51 of the UN Charter provides for the right of "hot pursuit" against the PKK -- blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara -- on Iraqi territory.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed over 37,000 lives since the PKK launched its armed campaign in 1984.

4. - Eurasia Insight - "Concern Rising About Kurdish Discontent In Southeastern Turkey":

27 April 2006 / by Yigal Schleifer

An upsurge in attacks against Turkish security forces by militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and a recent three-day outbreak of protests in Turkey's primarily-Kurdish southeast are raising concerns that the region could again spiral into the kind of violence experienced during the dark days of the 1980's and 1990's.

The possible revival of a full-blown PKK insurgency, aiming for the establishment of an autonomous homeland for Kurds, is something very much on the minds of Turkey's political and military leadership. The Turkish military has reinforced its already considerable troop strength in southeastern Turkey, and the Kurdish issue featured prominently in talks between Turkish leaders and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her April 25-26 visit. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In recent months, some 40 rebels, 140 soldiers and four police officers have been killed in clashes in southeastern Turkey. A recent string of bombings in Istanbul and other cities have also been blamed on the PKK, which two years ago called off the unilateral ceasefire it announced in 1999, following the capture of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

The late March protests that shook several cities in the southeast and even spread to Istanbul were the worst Turkey has seen in more than a decade, resulting in 16 deaths and hundreds of arrests. After years of relative quiet, the protests revealed that a new generation of angry young Kurds are ready to face off against Turkish authorities in this volatile region, where more than 30,000 people lost their lives in the fight between the PKK and the Turkish military during the 1980's and 90's.

"The [protests] were, in a way, expected by us," says Firat Anli, a district official in Diyarbakir, the regional center. "They were the result of the political and social problems in the region not being resolved, and it resulted in this explosive earthquake."

"The young people are poor," Anli added. "They are children of displaced families from villages who are having trouble adapting to life in the city and public services are having trouble reaching them. They have a lot of rage against the system and it's very difficult to control that."

A 22-year-old sitting in a darkened office in Diyarbakir -- a university student who participated in the protests and who didn't want his name printed because of concern about official retaliation - believes there could be more violence. "We want to make peace with the government, but when we say we are Kurds and want the law to recognize that, they say to us that there are no Kurds and there is no Kurdish problem," he said.

The student said the Turkish government's harsh response to the protests, which started after thousands attending the funerals of slain PKK guerillas in Diyarbakir clashed with police, has him thinking about going off to join the outlawed organization. Both the United States and European Union have labeled the PKK a "terrorist organization". "There are a lot, a lot of other young people in Diyarbakir who are thinking the same way," he said.

It may be the talk of a still-emotional young man, but his words offer a view to the growing tension in the region. Southeastern Turkey, suffering from high unemployment and a dearth of investment, continues to lag behind the rest of Turkey in almost every economic sphere. And while recent years have seen democratic reforms in Turkey, spurred by the country's drive to join the European Union, translate into increased cultural right for the Kurds, many in the region feel those reforms have not gone far enough.

Turkish officials say they are working to improve the situation in the area. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to Diyarbakir in August 2005 and offered his government's help in solving the "Kurdish problem." Following the violent protests, Erdogan told parliament: "We will bring [to the Kurdish areas] more freedoms, more democracy, more welfare, more rights and justice."

But Kurdish politicians say not much has been done since Erdogan's visit. They add that the current political atmosphere gives the government little room to dialogue with the Kurds. "The government doesn't have a program to solve the Kurdish problem," says Hilmi Aydogdu, a deputy chairman of the Diyarbakir branch of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, which has seen several of its top members arrested in the wake of the recent protests.

The renewed violence has already forced Turkey to act on both the military and legislative fronts. According to reports in the Turkish press, the military buildup in southeastern Turkey could be a harbinger of a raid into Iraq to attack suspected Kurdish bases. Rice during her stay in Ankara cautioned against "hot pursuit" of Kurdish militants, and Turkish leaders denied media reports that military units had already crossed into Iraq to hunt PKK militants.

Any Turkish military move against the PKK that spills over into Iraq could strain relations with Baghdad and with the Iraqi Kurds. Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, has already expressed his concern over Turkey's troop buildup. "Iraq is a sovereign independent nation that won't let other nations interfere in its internal affairs," Talabani said during a recent press conference in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil.

The Turkish parliament, meanwhile, is working on a new anti-terrorism bill that would redefine and expand what constitutes terrorism and would increase the jail time given to convicted terrorists. Turkey, as part of its continuing drive to join the EU, has instituted over the last few years a series of political reforms aimed at strengthening the country's democratic institutions and improving its human rights record. There is concern, though, that the growing violence and a renewed fight against the PKK could mean a retreat from some of those reforms.

Speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg after the violent protest in the southeast, EU health commissioner Markos Kyprianou expressed "concern" about the violence in Turkey, saying: "We urge the Turkish government to address in a comprehensive manner, and not only from a security point of view, the problems of this region and of its people."

In response, Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, said: "There will be no question of going back from democratic steps taken." Though he added that there will also be a "sharper struggle against terrorism."

In Kiziltepe, a town an hour's drive from Diyarbakir where two people were killed in protests, locals were still struggling to make sense of the recent events. "We've moved back ten years," says Yasar Aygin, 23, speaking in the small barbershop where he works. "When these events took place, I was reminded of the 1990's, when people were afraid to go out of their homes. I felt like I was back in those days."

Around the corner, an owner of a shop, who asked not to be named, said his business, like every other business in Kiziltepe, was shuttered during the three days of protests. "I wasn't angry. I have expenses for my shop - rent, taxes - but in order to get our cultural rights, our freedoms, I would close my shop for a month," he said.

"If the head of a family closes his ears to the demands of the rest of the family, it will result in fighting. This is what is happening in Turkey," he added. "The conflict is going to grow."

* Editor’s Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.

5. - Al Jazeera - "Iraq accuses Iran of border violations":

3 May 2006

Inhabitants of Iraq's border areas backed the bombing claim

The Iraqi defence ministry says Iran has violated Iraq's borders twice in April.

Major-General Abd al-Aziz Muhammad, director of the joint operation centre in the Ministry of Defence, said on Tuesday that the Iranian army crossed the Iraqi borders on April 21 and April 26.

"In the second violation, there was bombing against the positions of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)," he said.

"The Iranian troops reached five kilometres into Iraqi territories before they withdrew."

The spokesman said the ministry had sent the case to the foreign affairs ministry to settle it at the diplomatic level.

Iran has denied it made any incursion into Iraq or bombarded suspected positions of the Kurdistan Workers Party inside Iraq's autonomous Kurdish enclave.

'Fabricated' claim

The official Iranian News Agency, IRNA, quoted an unidentified political source as saying the reported attacks were "fabricated and prejudiced".

"Iranian armed forces are reasonable and wise when it comes to confronting desperate moves by terrorist groups on Iran's border," the Iranian political source said, adding: "Iran will carry out what is necessary to ensure security there."

Iran has denied the claim that it bombarded Iraqi territory

Witnesses in the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq said on Monday the attacks against the PKK, whose leader Abdullah Ocalan is serving a life sentence in Turkey, were concentrated on villages in the province of Kalaa Dazza, 100 miles north of al-Sulaimaniya, near the Iranian border.

The bombardment was mainly concentrated on the villages of Razka, Jukhanki and Shanawa, where the PKK, which is banned in Iran and Turkey, is suspected to have offices and positions.

The attacks set off fires and inflicted serious material damage on the four villages.

Aljazeera's correspondent in northern Iraq, Ahmad al-Zawiti, visited the village of Razka on the Iraq-Iran border and documented some reactions from officials and residents.

Ali Hamad Su, Kalaa Dazza district commissioner, said: "Iran has no right to violate the sovereignty of Iraq under any pretext and since it is a neighbouring country, it must maintain this sovereignty."

Signs of bombing

Al-Zawiti said it took Aljazeera's team more than three hours to cover 10km of rough mountain roads to reach the bombing site.

"Signs of bombing could be clearly seen," he said.

"The area contains the Qandil mountains, which act as a shield for fighters of the KPP in their clashes with the Iranian army.

A shepherd said: "One of the rockets fell on my sheep and killed some."

Another resident told Aljazeera: "About 60 rockets have fallen on our village as if we were in a war."

6. - Reuters - "Kurdish families flee as Iran shells rebel positions":

SULAIMANIYA / 2 May 2006

About 200 families fled their homes on the Iraq-Iran border on Monday as Iranian forces shelled areas used by Iranian-Kurdish rebels, according to Kurdish officials.

"The shelling began on Sunday and continued until Monday morning," said Azad Waso Hassan, member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which controls the area. "If the shelling continues, the area will witness a humanitarian crisis."

Hassan added that about 1,500 people from several villages in and around Sulaimaniyah, some 260km north-east of Baghdad, had been forced to flee as a result of the violence.

"Bombs shook our houses that night; we thought we wouldn't see the sun again," said Qader Ali, a 43 year-old farmer forced to flee his home along with five family members. "We suffered under Saddam, and continue to suffer now – the government must do something to help us," added Ali, who is currently staying at his brother's house in a nearby village.

According to Hassan, more than 180 artillery rounds were fired into the area, many of which landed near the Iraqi village of Haj Umran outside of Erbil, roughly 5km inside Iraqi territory. No casualties were reported in either attack. Iranian forces reportedly launched a similar artillery barrage in the area on 21 April.

Kurdish rebels have recently staged attacks against Iranian army and Revolutionary Guard positions from territory in Iraq. In response, Teheran has reportedly massed troops on the border, near the mountainous areas close to Haj Umran, which has been used in the past by anti-Iranian fighters thought to be linked to the militant Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

The Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS), meanwhile, has said it has no specific reports about those displaced by the shelling. "But we have sent blankets, food and other things to help these families," said IRCS Director Dr Saad Haqi.