Kurdish news

[kurdeng at aps.nl]

Highlights of the Turkish Press For August 11th
      ANKARA, Aug 11 (Reuter) - These are the leading stories in the Turkish
press on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch
for their accuracy.

    HURRIYET

    - Two feuding Iraqi Kurdish groups hold secret talks at a hotel near
Dublin. Turkish official takes part as observer.

    YENI POLITIKA

    - About 200 supporters of the Islamist Welfare Party (RP) protest at the
party's decision to allow police to detain 34 Kurdish hunger strikers at its
Istanbul provincial headquarters.

PKK Rejects Overture From Turkish Business
      By Claire Springett

    ATHENS, Aug 10 (Reuter) - Kurdish rebels said on Thursday a Turkish
report urging better treatment for the country's 10 million Kurds was
probably a sop by Ankara to the European Union in its efforts to win a
customs pact.

    A Kurdish spokesman told Reuters the report, made public last week by an
influential Turkish business grouping, was unlikely to spur reforms that
would end the Kurds' 11-year-old secessionist struggle.

    ``Businessmen are saying they're proposing a reform package, which would
be an argument for the government to give the EU to ease customs union,''
Adar Serket, a member of the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK), told Reuters.

    Serket, representing the ERNK political group, was speaking after a news
conference to announce the end of a hunger strike by Kurds in Athens
protesting against Ankara's refusal to grant Kurds autonomy, and ERNK's
illegal status in Germany.

    ``The proposals probably aim to cover (military) operations and the
genocide going on, and act as a concession,'' he said.

    The report, compiled by an academic team headed by Professor Dogu Ergil
of Ankara University, was commissioned by the Union of Chambers and Trade
Bourses, whose chairman, Yalim Erez, is close to Prime Minister Tansu Ciller.


    It said support for the PKK would weaken if Ankara heeded Kurds' social
and economic grievances and tolerated pro-Kurdish sentiments. International
organisations have criticised Turkey's record on human rights.

    ``We reject this as a step towards a solution. There are some people in
business, even in the government and the military, who want a political
solution, but they are very weak,'' Serket said.

    ``Any solution has to be discussed with the military, the only real
political power in Turkey.''

    The report included a rare canvas of more than 1,200 Kurds, most of whom
said they would choose autonomy or being part of a federation if they could
change Turkey's political structure.

    More than 17,500 people have been killed in the PKK's fight for
independence or autonomy.

    Many conservative politicians, journalists and security officials have
condemned the report's findings. The opposition has suggested it was
influenced by Ciller to pave the way for democratic reforms. Her office has
denied this.

    A Turkish special court is investigating the report with an eye to
prosecution under a tough anti-terror law, a court prosecutor in Ankara told
Reuters on Wednesday.

Rival Iraqi Kurdish Groups Reach Peace Accord

    DUBLIN, Aug 11 (Reuter) - Two rival Iraqi Kurdish groups meeting at
U.S.-sponsored peace talks in Ireland have agreed to a temporary ceasefire
following a year of bloody clashes, an Iraqi opposition group said on Friday.


    The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK) also made ground on two key issues to be discussed at further talks,
the Iraqi National Congress (INC) said.

    About 3,000 people have been killed in fighting between the militias in
northern Iraq in the last year. Much of the feud has been related to control
of the main Kurdish city of Arbil and revenues from a makeshift oil trade on
the Iraqi-Turkish border.

    ``They have agreed to specific principles for the resolution of Arbil and
the revenues,'' INC leader Ahmad Chalabi told Reuters by telephone from the
talks venue in Drogheda, about 25 miles (40 km) north of Dublin.

    The two groups are to immediately enforce a temporary ceasefire that was
broken in July after three months, he said.

    ``The chances of a more detailed meeting or agreement are positive,'' KDP
Ankara spokesman Safeen Dizayee said.

    In Ankara, Turkey, which says the Iraqi Kurds' infighting allows the
Turkey-based separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to operate from
northern Iraq, said the agreement, after three days of talks, was a
``positive step.''

    The outcome of the meeting was both good for the people of northern Iraq
and for security in Turkey, as well as for Iraq's territorial integrity which
Turkey supports, a foreign ministry statement carried on Anatolian news
agency said.

    The Iraqi Kurds have been protected from Baghdad by a Western allied air
force based in southern Turkey since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

    Washington, fearing President Saddam Hussein could use the feud to regain
influence in northern Iraq, brokered the talks.

    The two sides will meet again soon to discuss a plan to demilitarise
Arbil and then deposit their revenues in bank accounts to be monitored by a
neutral commission, Chalabi said.

    The KDP, led by Massoud Barzani, has insisted at previous mediation talks
that its rival give up control of Arbil, the seat of a regional parliament
which has been paralysed by the fighting for the last eight months.

    Jalal Talabani's PUK has accused Barzani's group of hoarding tolls taken
from lorry drivers at the border. The drivers bring food and other supplies
into northern Iraq and take back small amounts of Iraqi oil.

Troops and Helicopters Hunt Down PKK Terrorists
      TUNCELI, Turkey, Aug 11 (Reuter) - Thousands of Turkish troops backed
by helicopters firing rockets tried to flush a small group of Kurdish
guerrillas out of mountain hideouts in eastern Turkey on Friday, security
officials said.

    More than 2,000 soldiers were taking part in the sweep against about 120
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels in and around Nazimiye district in
Tunceli province, they said.

    At least six rebels and one soldier have been killed in fighting in the
area since mid-week, the officials said.

    Tunceli has been the scene of heavy clashes since PKK regional commander
Semdin Sakik began operating in the province last year.

    Rebels who had surrendered to security forces told reporters this week
that Sakik, also known as ``Fingerless Zeki,'' had recently left Tunceli for
Bingol to the east because the rebels' food supplies in Tunceli were running
low.

    Police and soldiers tightly control food deliveries in Tunceli to prevent
villagers giving food to the guerrillas, either willingly or under PKK
pressure.

    About 10,000 soldiers are positioned near the border between Tunceli and
Bingol to flush out the guerrillas in Nazimiye and prevent Sakik and about 80
rebels accompanying him from returning to his former stronghold in the
mountains of Tunceli.

    More than 17,500 people have been killed in the PKK's 11-year-old fight
for autonomy or independence in the southeast Turkey. Security forces killed
five rebels in other parts of the region on Friday, Anatolian news agency
said.

    Two people were wounded when a bomb they were preparing in an Istanbul
apartment exploded prematurely on Thursday night. Anatolian identified the
three as Kurdish militants.

Cyprus Welcomes Irish Initiative
      NICOSIA, Aug 11 (Reuter) - Cyprus said on Friday it would welcome any
mediation by Irish Foreign Minister Dick Spring in the dispute over the
divided island but warned that the Cyprus problem and the Irish problem are
different.

    Cyprus government spokesman Yiannakis Cassoulides in a written statement
said the government would welcome any foreign interest in settling the
problem that has eluded international mediation for 21 years.

    Cyprus has been divided into a southern Greek-speaking state and an
autonomous Turkish entity in the north since Turkey invaded the eastern
Mediterranean island in 1974.

    Officials in Dublin told Reuters Spring may be travelling to Cyprus next
month.

    Spring is a key player in the Anglo-Irish attempt to settle the conflict
between Irish nationalists and pro-British Unionists in Northern Ireland.

    Irish officials speculated that he might try to explain how the British
and Irish governments are trying to heal rifts between the two Northern
Ireland communities with a step-by-step peace plan.

    Cyprus, Cassoulides said, is eager to learn and be informed by Spring on
the experiences and efforts to solve the Northern Ireland conflct, but, he
said, the two problems are different.

    ``Of course the Cyprus problem has its own peculiarities, first and
foremost as a problem of invasion and occupation. Despite these parallels it
is not similar to either the Irish or the Middle East problem,'' said
Cassoulides.

    Spring is expected to hold exploratory talks with both the Greek Cypriot
government and authorities in the self-styled Turkish state in northern
Cyprus which is not recognised except by the Ankara government.

Clumsy PKK Terrorists Bomb Themselves in Istanbul
      ISTANBUL, Aug 11 (Reuter) - Two people were wounded when a bomb they
were preparing in an Istanbul apartment exploded prematurely, a Turkish
police spokesman said on Friday.

    Police were searching for a third person who fled after the explosion on
Thursday evening, and Anatolian news agency identified the three as Kurdish
militants.

    The illegal Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), fighting for independence or
autonomy in the mainly Kurdish southeast, has been blamed for numerous bomb
blasts in Istanbul.

    Police also said they detained seven people from a group called the
Turkish Revolution Party, allegedly behind a grenade attack on an Istanbul
police bus on July 21 that wounded 12.

    Turkish experts say the group is linked to the PKK.

    Anatolian also reported 29 people kidnapped in eastern Bingol province by
the PKK were released on Friday after two days of lectures about the Kurdish
cause.

    More than 17,500 people have died since the PKK took up arms in 1984.

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 * Origin: APS Amsterdam (aps.nl), bbs +31-20-6842147 (16:31/2.0)