HIrgUr MUstemleke; Sanki Fiyasko Ha

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From: newsdesk at newsdesk.aps.nl (Newsdesk Amsterdam)
Subject: Re: HIrgUr MUstemleke; Sanki Fiyasko Haberler, 23/3/95, 08:00 TSI
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(1) Turkey Hits Kurds By Air, Land

DARKARJAN, Iraq (AP) -- Turkish troops rolled past Kurdish villages in a
massive offensive against a rebel movement, raising worldwide concern Wednesday
for civilians caught on the battleground.

Air strikes, shelling and combat continued for a third day in a 20-mile-wide
strip of northern Iraq. Turkey sent 35,000 troops across the border Monday in
an attempt to wipe out camps of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

"They drove into my house with a tank," said Suleyman Shivan, standing beside
his half-demolished home in this village. His wife rocked their 10-month-old
baby to sleep in a cradle among the ruins.

Shivan said that like most of the men in the village, he was a fighter for an
Iraqi Kurdish opposition party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). "They
ordered everybody out, searched the houses and seized our party's weapons,"
Shivan told The Associated Press. Seven people from the village were detained,
he said.

A few hundred soldiers later settled in a KDP building and erected tents
outside. They came with tanks, personnel carriers and trucks.

A 5-year-old girl was killed during an air raid Monday in the village of
Pilingan, and four other civilians were injured, said Shazad Saib, an Iraqi
Kurdish spokesman in Ankara.

Baghdad, in its first comment on the offensive, on Wednesday protested a
"violation of Iraq's sovereignty" and demanded withdrawal, the official Iraqi
News Agency said.

Ankara defended its actions and rejected charges it was endangering civilians.
Turkey complied with international law by acting to "exterminate a threat to
the lives and security of its citizens," said Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ferhat
Ataman in Ankara.

Turkish officials say about 2,800 guerrillas were operating in northern Iraq.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees expressed worry for some 4,500 Kurds
who fled Turkey last year, claiming assaults on their villages. Witnesses said
the refugees remained at the Atrus camp and several villages near the border.
"No, they are not forced back," Shivan said.

The Red Cross on Wednesday appealed to Turkey to spare civilians and said it was
"deeply concerned" about their safety. Belgium and Denmark joined France in
criticizing the offensive.

The United States had offered general support but raised a new note of caution
Wednesday. "We have urged (Turkey) to keep the operation limited in duration
and scope, and to give full respect for human rights and international law,"
U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said in Paris during a diplomatic
swing. A high-level European Union delegation was due Thursday on a previously
scheduled visit and would seek "clarification" on the offensive, the EU said.

Ratification of a customs agreement between Turkey and the EU depends on
Turkey's human rights record, which has been under fire of late in the Kurdish
war.

Helicopters Wednesday ferried in reinforcements and at least seven battles were
raging, the Anatolia news agency said. F-5 and F-16 fighter jets attacked
unspecified targets. Planes also dropped leaflets calling on the rebels to
surrender.

Col. Dogu Silahcioglu in the southern Turkish city of Diyarbakir said five more
soldiers were killed on Wednesday, increasing the death toll to 13. A total of
15 soldiers were wounded.

The government said more than 200 guerrillas were killed and 89 bodies have
been recovered.

The army erected three field hospitals on the border. Tanks patrolled up and
down the border and established checkpoints. A military official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity, said the army's stay could last until the end of
summer.

Turkey has carried out large operations before, but each time the guerrillas
regrouped and continued their attacks. The war has killed more than 15,000
people since 1984.

Kurds make up one-fifth of Turkey's 60 million people. A suppression of their
cultural rights and the harsh military crackdown has won the PKK hundreds of
thousands of sympathizers over the past decade.

Iraq's Kurds set up an autonomous zone under Western military protection after
the 1991 Gulf War. The U.S.-led allied air force set up to protect them has
canceled routine flights for the time being.

(2) Kurd Rebels: 170 Turks Killed

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) -- Turkey's Kurdish rebels claimed Wednesday they have
killed 170 Turkish troops since they struck into northern Iraq three days ago.
A communique by the Kurdish Workers' Party, known as the PKK, also claimed
that its guerrillas killed 17 Turkish troops in a raid on a barracks inside
Turkey near the Iraqi border Wednesday.

The communique sent to The Associated Press in Nicosia said rebel losses
were "negligible," but gave no numbers. A Turkish announcement Tuesday said
that at least 200 rebels and eight soldiers had been killed in the fighting in
northern Iraq.

By all accounts, the estimated 3,000 PKK guerrillas based in northern Iraq,
in a self-rule enclave run by Iraqi Kurdish groups, have dispersed into the
mountains to avoid pitched battles with the vastly superior Turkish force of
some 35,000 troops.

The communique said the Turkish rebels blasted the Bustan Barracks in Silopi,
eight kilometers north of the border, with rockets and mortars Wednesday,
primarily to demonstrate that the Turkish assault will not halt raids inside
Turkey.

The PKK communique said the heaviest clashes have been in the regions of
Haftanin, Cicaye and Zawite, some 50 kms south of the Turkish border.

The PKK said Turkish troops were forcing thousands of Kurdish refugees who had
sought refuge in northern Iraq to cross back into Turkey "in a blatant
violation of the Geneva Convention."

It said that Turkish fighter-bombers have bombed civilian targets in northern
Iraq, but added that it has not been possible to ascertain casualty figures
yet.

Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller said in an interview with a Turkish
newspaper Wednesday that the incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan would continue
until all rebel bases in the region were wiped out, indicating that the
operation could last for some time. "We haven't put down any time limit. It
will be a final blow to the PKK," she said.

In Damascus, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the main Iraqi Kurdish
factions and close to the PKK, denounced ther Turkish operation as a "flagrant
intervention" against the Kurds.

The party's representative in the Syrian capital, Dana Mejid, alleged that
the PUK's main rival in thr Iraqi Kurdish zone, the Kurdistan Democratic Party,
was working with the Turkish forces and attacking PUK positions.

The PUK and KDP have been fighting since last May for control of the self-rule
enclave. But it was not clear whether large-scale clashes have resumed.

(3) Turkey risks rift with NATO over Iraq incursion

By Suna Erdem

ANKARA, March 23 (Reuter) - Turkey's military thrust into Iraq to crush Kurdish
rebels threatened on Thursday to provoke a rift with its NATO allies, although
Ankara says the operation will be limited and "will not take months or years."

With up to 35,000 troops engaged in a fourth day of ground and air attacks
deep in northern Iraq, Baghdad has condemned the Turkish incursion and demanded
the troops be withdrawn.

Turkey's forces have advanced 40 km into Iraq and its jets have bombed targets
there. Army officers near the Iraqi town of Zakho said Turkish soldiers were
closing in from two sides on a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) border base.

Western governments and human rights groups, fearing for the safety of Kurdish
refugees and thousands of other civilians, have urged Ankara to show restraint.

In its first official comment since the operation began on Monday, Iraq said it
was "a violation of its sovereignty." Prime Minister Tansu Ciller said this was
"not the case at all." She said the assault would be limited, without
specifying. "It will take as long as it takes to ensure that the camps are no
longer there," she said in a live interview with CNN international television.
"It will not take months or years."

Military officials said about 200 guerrillas and 13 soldiers had been killed
since the operation began at dawn on Monday. Iraqi Kurds say at least one
civilian had been killed, and others hurt, but Turkey denies all such claims.

The assault threatened disarray within NATO, with the United States tacitly
endorsing the incursion as its European allies questioned its legality and
raised fears for thousands of refugees and civilians in Kurdish-controlled
northern Iraq.

"Turkey's actions in north Iraq give rise to the greatest concern," said German
Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel. Kinkel, due in Ankara for a visit on Thursday by
past, present and future European Union (EU) presidents, was joined by Britain
in urging Turkey to tread carefully in its biggest assault on PKK bases.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe on Tuesday said the incursion broke basic
principles of international law and that the air and ground raids violated
Iraq's sovereignty. Norway on Wednesday barred arms exports to Turkey, citing a
law referring to countries at war or in war-like situations.

The United Nations said it was worried about refugees, particularly 4,500
Turkish Kurds settled in border villages. It fears Turkish forces may have
seized some near the border town of Zakho and taken them back to Turkey.

It was echoed by aid and rights groups, including the International Committee
of the Red Cross and Amnesty International, in its concern.

For all the diplomatic and humanitarian risks involved, Turkey's heavy-handed
show of force is unlikely to score strongly against well-trained, highly-mobile
Kurdish guerrillas, according to military analysts. One said the guerrillas had
probably moved out of the area, leaving civilians to bear the brunt of the
attack.

Soldiers in Zakho acknowledged PKK mines were hindering an assault on the
rebels' Haftanin camp, to the east. They said many guerrillas had slipped away
before the incursion, with only a token force left at some of the PKK positions
being attacked.

Ciller said Turkey, a target of Western criticism on human rights, was not
jeopardising aspirations for closer relations with Europe as the assault was
clearly against "terrorists."

(4) Turkish troops hound rebel Kurds in north Iraq

By Aliza Marcus

ZAKHO, Iraq, March 22 (Reuter) - Turkish soldiers attacked a Kurdish rebel
position from two sides on Wednesday during a huge land and air operation in
northern Iraq that has aroused international concern.

"In the end, (the guerrillas) will either give up or they will be destroyed,"
said a Turkish officer at an artillery post 25 km from the northern Iraqi city
of Zakho.

As he spoke, a 155mm howitzer fired shells 10 km northwards at a Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) base almost on the Turkish-Iraq border.

Troops crossing the border from Turkey were closing in on the rebels from the
other side of the base, the officer said.

Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller said the operation would be limited, but
would not specify a duration. "It will take as long as it takes to ensure that
the camps are no longer there," she said in a live interview with CNN
International television. "It will not take months or years."

Baghdad denounced Turkey's attack and demanded troops be withdrawn. "Iraq
considers this operation on Turkey's part as a violation of its sovereignty," a
Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a first official comment since the operation
began on Monday.

Western governments and human rights groups, fearing harm to Kurdish refugees
and other civilians, have urged Turkey to tread carefully in Iraq.

German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said Turkey's actions "give rise to
the greatest concern," while French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has said the
Turkish incursion broke basic principles of international law. Both are due in
Ankara on Thursday for scheduled European Union talks.

Britain was also watching the situation with concern, a Foreign Office
spokesman said. Witnesses said on Wednesday troops had detained about 200
villagers from Derkar, near Zakho, under suspicion of PKK links.

Colonel Dogu Silahcioglu, spokesman for the Turkish General Staff, denied
any moves against civilians, dismissing the reports as "terrorist propaganda."
He told a news briefing that a "security coordination centre" was being set
up in Zakho, under a foreign ministry official, to attend to the needs of
civilians in the area.

Turkish forces, on the third day of their mission, have penetrated 40 km into
Iraq to root out the PKK, which uses camps in the border area in its
10-year-old fight for an independent state in southeast Turkey.

Ciller said there had been no civilian casualties in the operation. But the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), an Iraqi Kurdish group sharing power in the
north, said Turkish forces killed a girl and wounded four other civilians on
Monday.

Turkey's Anatolian news agency said the operation commander, Lieutenant-General
Hasan Kundakci, had confirmed a report by the defence minister that 200 rebels
had been killed since Monday.

Colonel Silahcioglu told reporters that 13 soldiers had been killed and 15
wounded since Monday.

The defence minister's rebel casualty toll on Tuesday had contrasted sharply
with a military spokesman who put the death toll at 24 rebels and eight
soldiers. Turkey has said about 2,500 PKK fighters were sheltering in northern
Iraq.

Troops displayed weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, mortars and
anti-tank mines, they said were captured from the PKK. Villagers said the arms
belonged to local PUK members.

(5) Red Cross urges Turkey to safeguard Kurd civilians

GENEVA, March 22 (Reuter) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
said on Wednesday it was "deeply concerned" about the plight of civilians in
northern Iraq after a Turkish military advance against Kurdish guerrillas.

Joining an international chorus of unease, the ICRC said it had sent a note to
the Turkish government reminding it of its obligations under international
humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions to protect civilians during armed
conflicts.

"The ICRC further requested immediate access to Kurdish combatants and
civilians detained by the Turkish armed forces," the ICRC said in a statement.
Major Western governments including France, Britain and Germany have all urged
Turkey to tread carefully in its military incursion into Iraq.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has also expressed its
concern for some 4,500 Turkish Kurd refugees who it fears may get caught up in
the fighting.

"The ICRC appeals to the Turkish military authorities and to all the parties
involved to respect international humanitarian law," the ICRC statement added.
"It calls upon them to refrain from launching any indiscriminate attack that
may endanger the civilian population and to accord humane treatment to
captured combatants and arrested civilians. It also requests them to care for
the wounded and sick and to respect the Red Cross and Red Crescent emblems."

(6) Germany concerned at Turkish incursion into Iraq

By Michael Christie

BONN, March 22 (Reuter) - Turkey's attacks on separatist Kurds in north Iraq
faced mounting criticism on Wednesday from Germany, where Kurdish attacks on
Turkish property have reflected the state of Ankara's war against the
guerrillas.

German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, visiting Kuwait on a Middle East
tour, expressed his "greatest concern" and appealed to the Turkish
government to exercise restraint, respect human rights and protect the
civilian population from harm.

"Turkey has justified security interests in its conflict with the terrorist
activities of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) in north Iraq," the Foreign
Ministry quoted Kinkel as saying in a statement issued in Bonn. "But Turkey's
actions in north Iraq give rise to the greatest concern. The Kurdish problem
must be solved...through political and legal means and not military ones."

Other NATO governments were also alarmed at the prospect of a new crisis in
the Western alliance, with NATO-member Turkey's military offensive into Iraq
in its third day.

Karl Lamers, foreign affairs spokesman of Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian
Democrats (CDU), said it would only worsen tensions between Kurds and Turks,
both in Turkey and Germany.

"I fear it will only make the problem worse," Lamers told German radio.
Noting that "fighting in Kurdistan means there will also be fighting in
Germany" where 1.85 million Turks live, Lamers said it was in Bonn's
interest to press Ankara to seek a political solution to its war against
Kurdish separatists.

German prosecutors meanwhile said they had formally arrested a woman,
identified only as Zulfiye S., suspected of being a PKK leader in southern
Bavaria responsible for a series of fire-bomb attacks on Turkish premises.

Arsonists set fire to a Turkish cultural centre in the northeastern city of
Salzgitter in the ninth consecutive night of attacks on Turkish property in
Germany, police said.

In separate incidents in Braunschweig, Hanover and Gifhorn, car tyres
were set ablaze in the streets, police said. In the southern city of Mannheim,
some 300 Kurds rallied to commemorate two Kurdish women who set fire to
themselves last year in protest at what they saw as Bonn's support for Ankara.

Kohl's top security aide, Bernd Schmidbauer, has blamed the PKK for the
anti-Turkish violence in which scores of shops, travel agencies and cultural
centres have been hit.

Amid the furore over Turkey's venture in Iraq, Bavarian Interior Minister
Guenther Beckstein said the state would this week start deporting Kurds found
guilty of violence in Germany.

Most other states have decided to ignore for now a federal directive lifting a
moratorium on the deportation of Kurds. But Beckstein said that so long as
they were sent back to western Turkey and not the southeast their welfare
would be assured.

The Foreign Ministry said Kinkel would express his concern on a visit to
Ankara of the European Union "troika" -- past, present and future holders
of the EU presidency -- on Thursday.

(7) Turkey's assault gives West concern

By Suna Erdem

ANKARA, March 22 (Reuter) - Turkey's huge cross-border attack on separatist
Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq continued unabated into a third day,
raising concerns abroad about the fate of refugees in the region.

The operation, involving up to 35,000 troops advancing 40 km  into Iraq, also
provoked concerns about its legality, particularly in Europe, where Turkey
aspires to closer economic and political ties.

President Suleyman Demirel said Turkey was "absolutely determined to eliminate
this major provocation" (of separatist Kurds), but said care was taken not to
hurt civilians.

He spoke on Turkish television as reports flowed of Turkish planes pounding
Kurdish rebel camps along a 300-km front inside northern Iraq and ground forces
advancing in pursuit of guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Turkish troops, speaking from Iraq on Turkish television, vowed to stay until
the PKK was destroyed: "We will not leave until they are finished. Wherever
they go, we will chase them." "The aim is to cause as much destruction as
possible," said one military official back in Turkey, summing up the operation
which started before dawn on Monday.

The United Nations said it would be a "very serious matter" if reports
were verified from the Iraqi border town of Zakho that Turkish troops had
rounded up Turkish Kurdish civilians and taken them across the border to
Turkey. The U.N. refugee agency assists a total of 13,000 Turkish Kurds in
northern Iraq.

The European Union said the incursion broke international law, violating
Iraq's territorial integrity.

But, while the United States asked Ankara to keep the operation as limited as
possible, it tacitly endorsed the move after assurances that civilians would
be safeguarded.

"There is nothing that warrants foreign reaction," Demirel said. "The
terrorists...cross the border to come and kill our people. It is impossible
to tell us not to do anything in the face of this...This is also in line with
international law."

The Anatolian news agency quoted Prime Minister Tansu Ciller as saying
she was sure no civilians had been killed.

An Iraqi opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), said in a
statement that Turkish paratroopers had dropped on villages 25 km northeast of
Dohuk in the east of the region, controlled by Iraqi Kurds since the 1991
Gulf War. But a tank advance towards the district of Shiranish, northeast of
the Iraqi border town of Zakho, had met heavy resistence from Kurdish
guerrillas, it said.

The INC also said troops carried out house-to-house searches in villages near
Zakho and arrested suspected PKK sympathisers.

Turkey's general staff spokesman Colonel Dogu Silahcioglu said in Diyarbakir,
command centre for the operation, that at least 24 PKK members were killed.
Eight soldiers were also dead.

The colonel's casualty figure contrasted sharply with one of 200 PKK rebels
being killed, with no Turkish casualties, given earlier on Tuesday by Defence
Minister Mehmet Golhan.

First Turkish television pictures showed soldiers in northern Iraq deployed on
steep hilltops, their guns and rocket launchers pointing towards an empty
horizon. Snow lay in some parts, with troops snaking their way through it in
long lines.

In Silopi, near the Iraqi border, the mission commander told reporters his men
had secured a swathe of Iraqi territory 300 km wide and more than 32 km deep,
and progressed virtually unhindered on the second day.

Military analysts in Ankara said much of the surprise element had been lost by
the lengthy troop buildup, giving the well-trained PKK rebels time to slip
away, or back into Turkey.

(8) Turkey's heavy-handed approach to guerrila war

By Jonathan Lyons

ANKARA, March 22 (Reuter) - Turkey's big show of force in northern Iraq is
likely to yield little against well-trained, highly-mobile Kurdish guerrillas,
military analysts said on Wednesday.

For a third day running F-16 jets bombarded suspected PKK camps deep inside
Iraq, while mechanised units and ground forces sought to cut off any lines of
retreat. But this heavy-handed approach to guerrilla warfare, especially
against hardened PKK forces now in their 11th year of insurgency, has raised
fears that those bearing the brunt of the attacks may be Kurdish refugees, not
armed fighters.

"This kind of thing -- with pincer movements and tanks -- looks good in the
cabinet room or on a World War One map," one analyst, following the campaign
from Ankara, told Reuters. "It will accomplish nothing significant against the
PKK. Most guerrillas probably melted away before the assault, leaving Kurdish
civilians behind."

A retired Turkish military officer, with experience fighting the rebels, called
the incursion "a disaster." "You cannot get rid of guerrillas this way. It's
just a show-off tactic," he said.

In fact, early reports indicate the guerrillas took full advantage of the
slow, public buildup of troops and material along the border to slip away or
infiltrate back into Turkey.

A source close to the PKK in Turkey's Tunceli province said stepped up
guerrilla activity there reflected the arrival of fresh reinforcements from
Iraqi bases, 350 km to the east, in time for the traditional spring offensive.

Turkish army spokesmen told a briefing on Tuesday that just 24 PKK rebels were
confirmed dead in the first two days of the operation -- highlighting the
problems of taking on mobile insurgents. Eight Turkish soldiers were also
killed.

Foreign observers in Ankara suggested a small commando force, dropped deep
inside the 40-km security zone that army planners have mapped out, would have
been far more effective.

"You launch that kind of thing from Ankara, not from the border. That way
there is an element of surprise," one said.

A spokesman for the Iraqi Kurds, who nominally control the theatre of
operations, said innocent civilians were paying the price for bungled military
operations.

Shazad Saib, Ankara representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK),
told Reuters Turkish planes killed one young girl and wounded four other
civilians in a bombing raid near the Iranian border on Monday.

The target was a suspected PKK camp at Bote, he said, but three other villages,
inhabited only by civilans, were also hit in the attack. "They are not good at
shooting. When the Israelis go in, they pick a target and hit it," Saib said.
"But the Turks get four or five targets around it."

(9) Britain joins chorus of concern over Kurds

LONDON, March 22 (Reuter) - Britain added its voice on Wednesday to
international concern about Turkey's land and air operation against Kurdish
rebels in northern Iraq.

"We are watching the situation closely and with concern. We have made clear to
the Turks our expectation that the principle of territorial integrity should be
upheld and we have received assurances that this should be the case," a Foreign
Office spokesman said.

Western governments and human rights groups, fearing harm to Kurdish refugees
and other civilians, have urged Turkish forces, on the third day of their
mission, to tread carefully in Iraq.

"We have already emphasised to the Turks that they should be scrupulous in
ensuring that no harm comes to non-combatants and there should be no
interruption to normal relief efforts," the Foreign Office spokesman said.

He said a European Union mission would have a timely opportunity to reinforce
these points when it meets the Turkish government in Ankara on Thursday.

(10) Arsonists hit Turkish cultural centre in Germany

BONN, March 22 (Reuter) - Arsonists set fire to a Turkish cultural centre in
the northeastern city of Salzgitter in the latest attack on Turkish property,
police said on Wednesday.

Nobody was injured in the incident on Tuesday night in which a canister full of
burning petrol was thrown at the entrance of the cultural centre which also
housed a sports club. The flames were quickly put out by a group of policemen
driving by on patrol.

In separate incidents in Braunschweig, Hanover and Gifhorn, car tyres were set
on fire on the streets overnight, police said. Chancellor Helmut Kohl's top
security aide, Bernd Schmidbauer, has accused the separatist Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) of the anti-Turkish violence in which scores of shops, travel
agencies and cultural centres have been hit.

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