Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Two soldiers, one rebel killed in Turkey clashes

Turkey has been worried since the start of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March last year that the Kurds, encouraged by the US occupation, would establish an independent state in northern Iraq .

This, Ankara fears, might encourage similar separatist aspirations from its own Kurdish community.

The New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh -- a veteran journalist who contributed to exposing the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers -- quoted current and former Israeli intelligence officials that it is not strange that Israel is quite active in the region.

"Before the war, Israel was active in Kurdistan , and now it is active again. This is very dangerous for us, and for them, too. We do not want to see Iraq divided, and we will not ignore it."
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-Am

Two soldiers, one rebel killed in Turkey clashes
03 Oct 2004 15:48:38 GMT

Source: Reuters

TUNCELI, Turkey, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Two soldiers and a rebel were killed in renewed fighting between Turkish security forces and Kurdish separatists, officials said on Sunday.

Clashes erupted in the southeastern province of Tunceli on Saturday and a security sweep against rebels was continuing on Sunday, Tunceli Governor Mustafa Erkal said.

About 2,000 soldiers, backed by helicopter gunships, were combing the remote, mountainous region, he said.

A local military official said about 15 fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were being pursued.

"Because the area is densely forested, we have had to slow operations from time to time. But we have now widened it to capture the 15 or so PKK (fighters) there," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast has been on the rise since the PKK called off its six-year, unilateral ceasefire with Turkey in June.

The upsurge in fighting threatens the region's fragile peace, in place since Turkey captured and jailed PKK commander Abdullah Ocalan in 1999.

More than 30,000 people, most of them Kurds, have been killed since the PKK launched its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey in 1984.


http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L0355565.htm