Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Iraqi Kurdish leader vows support for Turkey against rebels

01/06/2004 AFP
ANKARA, June 1 (AFP) - 14h17 - The Iraqi Kurds will not allow Turkish Kurd rebels hiding in northern Iraq to use the enclave as a launchpad for attacks on neighboring Turkey, a senior Iraqi Kurdish officials said here Tuesday.

The rebels announced last week that they would end a unilateral five-year ceasefire with Ankara as of June 1, warning foreigners against coming to Turkey.

"We are adamant and we are commited that Iraqi territory, and Iraqi Kurdistan as well, will not be used in any way ... as a base of operations to endanger the security of our neighbors," Barham Saleh, a senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), told reporters after talks with Turkish diplomats.

"We will be working with our neighbors to ensure that there will be no threat emanating from our territory to their interests," he added.

About 5,000 Turkish Kurd militants are said to have found refuge in the mountains of northern Iraq since 1999 when the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said it would end its armed campaign for self-rule in southeast Turkey in favor of a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question.

Since then the group has several times changed names. Its most recent reincarnation, KONGRA-GEL, however, remains on the list of terrorist organizations of both the United States and the European Union.

But Turkey has several times expressed frustration over what it sees as US reluctance to purge northern Iraq of the rebels despite an "action plan" that the two NATO allies signed on the issue last October.

Turkish police said Tuesday that they had detained 10 suspected Kurdish rebels who were preparing to carry out bomb attacks in the country’s biggest city Istanbul and the southern city of Adana.





http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=5010