HIrgUr MUstemleke; Sanki Fiyasko Ha

[newsdesk_aps_nl at apsf.aps.nl]

From: newsdesk_aps_nl at apsf.aps.nl (newsdesk at aps.nl)
Subject: HIrgUr MUstemleke; Sanki Fiyasko Haberler, 21/3/95, 08:00 TSI


Lines: 405

from HH the DemiGod:


(1) Turkish Troops Attack Kurds

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey sent tens of thousands of troops into the
mountains of northern Iraq on Monday to chase separatist Turkish Kurdish
rebels
from their sanctuaries there.

Some 35,000 soldiers, warplanes and armored vehicles were on the move
against bases that are the rebels' staging sites for hit-and-run attacks
against Turkey. A military spokesman said 76 bombs were dropped on a single
camp alone. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Turks went on the offensive after Kurdish rebels killed 15 Turkish
soldiers in an ambush near the Iraqi border Saturday. The operation apparently
was timed to ward off violence on the Kurdish new year Tuesday.

"It is the largest operation ever," eclipsing Turkey's 1974 invasion of
Cyprus,
government spokesman Yildirim Aktuna said.

Some 200,000 Turkish soldiers in southeastern Turkey are fighting a guerrilla
force estimated at 10,000. The guerrillas, who belong to the illegal Kurdistan
Workers Party or PKK, launched the war in 1984. Since then, 15,000 people have
died in the rebel battle to achieve self-rule for Turkey's 12 million Kurds.

In Nicosia, a rebel leader said the offensive underscored how the Kurds are
holding their own.

Masallah Orca, a representative of the Turkish Kurds' parliament-in-exile,
told The Associated Press his people will celebrate the Kurdish New Year
Tuesday "stronger than they have ever been since our struggle began 11 years
ago.

The U.S. military canceled its routine flights over northern Iraq on Monday
because of the fighting. American warplanes based in southern Turkey have
patrolled the area since 1991 to protect Iraqi Kurds from Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein.

Turkey also kept its Habur border gate with Iraq closed. About 3,000 Turkish
trucks massed at the border in an 80-mile-long line.

The Turkish troops went after 12 camps in a 130-square-mile area, and
Turkish F-104 and F-5 fighter jets and Cobra helicopters swooped down on
bombing raids.

A military spokesman, Col. Ihsan Ongun, said the operation would continue
until all Kurdish rebel bases were wiped out. These bases replaced camps
destroyed by Turkey in 1992. Aktuna said there were up to 2,800 Turkish
Kurdish
guerrillas at the 12 camps.

In the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, Chief of Staff spokesman Col. Dogu
Silahcioglu said 14 fighter jets dropped 76 bombs in the Bote region alone.
Silahcioglu said 50 armored vehicles were part of the operation. The soldiers
were mostly commandos, but also included mechanized troops, he said.

An Iraqi Kurdish opposition group, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, denounced
Turkey's military incursion. A statement said the Turkish troops intimidated
Iraqi Kurds when they searched their houses.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry denied the charges and said no curfews were
imposed and no civilians were arrested.

Turkey's chief of staff said in a written statement that the guerrillas had
reinforced their positions in northern Iraq, taking advantage of fighting
between Iraqi Kurds.

Turkey permits the U.S.-led allied air force to protect the Iraqi Kurds from
possible Iraqi attacks, but was dismayed by the creation of the de facto Iraqi
Kurdish state.

Turkey, like Iraq, Iran and Syria, fears its sizable Kurdish minority would
be encouraged in its separatist ambitions if the Iraqi Kurds were achieve
independence. There are some 20 million Kurds in the region where the borders
of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey converge.

(2) Rebel Leader: Kurds Holding On

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) - The Turkish army's offensive into northern Iraq to hit
Kurdish rebel bases underlined how the Kurds are holding their own in their
separatist campaign, a rebel leader said here Monday.

Masallah Orca, a representative of the Turkish Kurds' parliament-in-exile,
told
The Associated Press his people will celebrate the Kurdish New Year Tuesday
"stronger than they have ever been since our struggle began 11 years ago."

"Despite all its efforts to crush our uprising, Turkey has lost control in
many
areas of Kurdistan, and our fighters operate there freely" Hoca said.

Hoca spoke shortly after 35,000 Turkish troops poured across the border into
Iraqi Kurdistan in a major operation to destroy alleged safe havens of the
guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party of Turkey, known as the PKK. The
Turkish incursion came after PKK guerrillas killed 15 Turkish soldiers
Saturday
in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border.

More than 15,000 people have been killed since the PKK launched its campaign
in 1984.

The Turkish push into northern Iraq was an attempt "to camouflage its failure
to crush our struggle" in the Kurdish provinces of eastern Turkey, Hoca
declared.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two main groups ruling the
autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, denied there were PKK bases in
the
areas overrun by Turkish troops.

A KDP statement said the Turkish troops have rounded up Iraqi Kurdish men and
terrorist Iraqi Kurds.

Hoca said Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller, "who claimed that 1994 would be
a decisive year marking the crushing of our struggle, has been proved wrong by
developments. The military balance has changed in our favor and in many areas
even the Turkish civil administration is no longer able to function," he
claimed.

Hoca said the Turkish incursion was part of a wider attempt by the Ankara
government to intimidate Kurds on both sides of the border during Nowruz, the
Kurdish New Year.

"Turkey has not realized yet that its oppressive measures, its genocide and
destruction of 3,000 Kurdish villages, have only strengthened our people's
determination to fight for freedom and human rights," Hoca added.

There are about 20 million spread over five states in the region -- 10
million in Turkey, 5.5 million in Iran, 3.5 million in Iraq, with small
enclaves in Syria and the former Soviet Union.

(3) Iraqi Kurds condemn Turkish push into north Iraq

ANKARA, March 20 (Reuter) - Iraqi opposition groups on Monday condemned the
cross-border move by up to 35,000 Turkish troops into northern Iraq to attack
Kurdish guerrilla bases.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), co-rulers of the autonomous Kurdish
region in northern Iraq, called the movement an "unjustified incursion" and
appealed to the United Nations to ensure the withdrawal of Turkish forces.

"Last night thousands of Turkish troops supported by 80 tanks, 100 APCs
(armoured personnel carriers) and around 280 vehicles, crossed the border
through the main road into Zakho," it said in a faxed statement from London.

"This move is the most serious by the Turkish army in size and intention
and it is a clear-cut violation of Iraq's territorial integrity," it said.
Turkey says the operation is aimed at wiping out bases of the separatist
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is fighting the army for a homeland in
southeast Turkey.

The opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), which embraces many Kurdish
groups, quoted their Zakho sources as saying Turkish troops had arrested
hundreds of men and women, accusing them of being PKK sympathisers.

"The Turkish army is (also) bombarding the villages around Zakho extensively,"
the INC said in a statement.

The KDP said Turkish forces initially controlled Zakho, imposing a curfew for
a few hours before heading east and surrounding two refugee centres,
identified
as Darkar and Hiezawa, where it said several thousands of Iraqi Kurds lived.

Turks say the KDP has traditionally been closer to Ankara than the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which shares power with the KDP in the de-facto
Iraqi
Kurdish government.

Most of northern Iraq is under the control of Iraqi Kurdish guerrillas who
split from Baghdad after the Gulf War in 1991. They are protected by Western
air cover.

(4) U.N. urges Turkish restraint against Kurd refugees

GENEVA, March 20 (Reuter) - The U.N. refugee agency urged Turkey on Monday to
exercise restraint in raids against Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq,
expressing "deep concern" for the safety of thousands of Kurdish refugees in
the region.

The office of the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said
it had received unconfirmed reports that at least two of five villages near
the
town of Zakho had been surrounded and subjected to house-to-house searches. It
said the same reports spoke of hundreds of arrests.

Turkish military officials said Turkey sent up to 35,000 troops backed by tank
and artillery into northern Iraq on Monday to attack Kurdish guerrilla bases.
A
government spokesman said some targets were destroyed in aerial bombing.

"We are expressing our concern to the Turkish authorities," a UNHCR spokesman
said.

A UNHCR statement added: "While UNHCR does not consider all Turkish Kurds in
northern Iraq to be refugees -- people involved in violent activities are not
eligible for refugee status -- it is satisfied that the people in the five
villages are civilians and in need of international protection."

UNHCR said that at the beginning of February there were 634 Turkish Kurd
refugees in the two villages, Hizawa and Darkar, mostly female or children.
There were at least 2,600 others in Zakho, which it said had also seen
extensive Turkish military activity. Overall in the region, there were 4,500
refugees.

UNHCR said it was not the first time genuine refugees had been caught up in
Turkish military action. Last year the U.N. agency relocated some 8,600
Turkish
Kurd refugees to a village some 160 km from the Turkish border to ensure
refugee settlements were not seen as a launch-pad for the Kurdish guerrilla
movements.

(5) Bonn minister wants Turks shielded from attacks

BONN, March 20 (Reuter) - Interior Minister Manfred Kanther called on
Germany's
federal states on Monday to give more protection to Turks and speedily deport
Kurds suspected of involvement in a series of attacks on Turkish premises.

Kanther's call came as firebombers attacked a Turkish prayer room in Bonn in
the seventh straight day of anti-Turkish violence in cities all across
Germany.

The daily newspaper Bild said security experts in Kanther's ministry feared
worse on Tuesday, the Kurdish New Year which has been a traditional focus for
guerrilla activity by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Kanther told ARD television the firebomb attacks on Turkish travel agencies,
mosques and social clubs "clearly bear the hallmark" of the PKK, banned in
Germany since two waves of spectacular coordinated attacks across Europe in
1993.

The PKK has been fighting Ankara since 1984 for an independent homeland in the
southeast of the country.

In the latest German incident, police said arsonists threw a petrol bomb
at a Turkish prayer room in Bonn, but it bounced off the thick windows and
caused little damage. They detained two Turks aged 54 and 22 on suspicion of
carrying out the attack.

Correcting an earlier report, they said the room belonged to Sunni Moslems,
not
the Alawite community. Attacks on Alawites in Istanbul last week sparked
violent clashes between protesters and police.

In a statement, Kanther urged the federal states responsible for general
policing to step up protection of Turkish premises and added: "Intelligence
on planned attacks must be improved."

Bild said searches following the recent attacks had uncovered firearms and
ammunition, and that these had alarmed authorities even further ahead of the
New Year festival.

Kanther urged a number of federal states controlled by the centre-left Social
Democrats to give up their refusal to send back Turkish Kurds whose asylum
requests had been rejected.

"It is irresponsible and is highly inappropriate to the current situation,
with
attacks on Turkish premises," Kanther said. The regional states say Kurdish
deportees are in danger of persecution in Turkey.

The Kurdish Community in Germany, representing more than 400,000 Kurds here,
said bans on Kurdish organisations and Kanther's refusal to exempt Kurds from
deportation were leading to a "general branding of hundreds of thousands of
Kurds and their democratic organisations in exile as criminal."

(6) German police worry as anti-Turk arson continues

BONN, March 20 (Reuter) - The German police union issued a call for help from
politicians and the courts on Monday as firebombers attacked an Alawite prayer
room in the seventh straight day of anti-Turkish violence.

Klaus Steffenhagen, deputy head of the Police Union (GdP), said law-breaking
foreigners must be deported immediately because police could not guarantee the
safety of all possible targets of foreign conflicts that spill over into
Germany.

Bonn's ombudsman for foreigners also urged state and local leaders to agree on
deportation guidelines to ensure foreign troublemakers were promptly thrown
out.

Police said arsonists threw a Molotov cocktail at a Turkish prayer room in
Bonn
overnight but it bounced off the thick windows and burned out without causing
much damage.

"The police are overworked, we cannot protect all endangered buildings,"
Steffenhagen told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but police suspect Kurdish
militants, who have been fighting Ankara since 1984 for an independent
homeland.

Germany's 1.8-million-strong Turkish community has been unsettled by the
attacks and is worrily eyeing the approach of Tuesday's Kurdish New Year -- a
traditional focus of guerrilla activity by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK).

Last year, militant Kurds in Germany marked their New Year by blockading
motorways and clashing with police.

Steffenhagen said simply putting more men on the beat was not the solution.
Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel called at the weekend for more police protection
for Turks in Germany.

"More and more staff is not the way to solve the problem," said Steffenhagen,
who said politicians should also do more to help integrate Turks living in
Germany.

Ombudsman Cornelia Schmalz-Jacobsen said the officials had waited far too long
before deciding to admit foreigners, especially Turks, into state and local
police forces.

Bonn police said they were searching for one suspect in the arson attack.
Police have yet to make any arrests for the attacks, which have taken place
all across the country.

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