TRKNWS-L NEWS from Vic McDonald

[newsdesk_aps_nl at apsf.aps.nl]

From: newsdesk_aps_nl at apsf.aps.nl (newsdesk at aps.nl)
Subject: TRKNWS-L NEWS from Vic McDonald


     Germany Bans PKK Affiliated Groups
 BONN, March 2 (Reuter) - Germany on Thursday banned the Kurdish Information
Office (KIB) in Cologne and five similar organisations in Bavaria which it
said were closely linked to the outlawed militant Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK).

    Interior Minister Manfred Kanther said a spate of petrol bomb attacks on
Turkish travel agencies in Germany in the last few days showed it was
important for the federal states to enforce a ban already imposed on the PKK
in November 1993.

    ``The ban on the KIB is the state's answer to the PKK's constant efforts
to circumvent the ban,'' Kanther said in a statement. ``The KIB is an
organisation which through propaganda has shown solidarity with the
activities and aims of the PKK.''

    The interior ministry said police had raided the KIB's premises in
Cologne and nine apartments in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria,
Berlin, Lower Saxony and Thuringia.

    It said the KIB had been established in December 1993, just one month
after the PKK was outlawed, and had taken over the PKK's premises.

    ``Security agency investigations show that through its active support of
the banned PKK, the KIB has almost seamlessly kept going the dangerous
activities for which the PKK was banned,'' Kanther said.

    Bonn banned the PKK and dozens of associated groups in 1993 after a
series of spectacular raids against Turkish targets across Europe.

    PKK militants were again suspected of being responsible for fire-bomb
attacks on 13 Turkish and German travel agencies in Germany late on Tuesday
and last weekend.

    No one was injured in the attacks which caused slight damage to the
agencies' premises in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Hanover and Munich.
Windows were smashed and petrol bombs thrown into some of the buildings,
police said.

    Leaflets saying ``No holidays in Turkey'' and signed ``Children from the
country of fire and the sun'' were found scattered near the travel agencies
in Hamburg.

    At the scene of one fire-bombing, police found a note from the National
Liberation Front of Kurdistan (ERNK), the political wing of the separatist
PKK. The note demanded a boycott of Turkey's tourism industry.

    The PKK has waged a 10-year war against Ankara for an independent Kurdish
homeland in southeast Turkey.

    Militant Kurds have frequently targeted Turkish installations in Germany
to protest against what they see as Ankara's oppression of Kurds living in
southeastern Turkey and Bonn's close ties with the Turkish government.

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-02 08:10:52 EST

Baghdad Attacks Kurdish Areas
    ANKARA, March 2 (Reuter) - An Iraqi opposition group said government
troops advanced on Thursday on areas held by Kurdish guerrillas in northern
Iraq and clashed with opposition forces.

    Fighting took place in the town of Shoursh, the London office of the
Iraqi National Congress (INC) told Reuters in Ankara.

    First reports were sketchy and there was no immediate word on casualties
or the extent of the fighting. The INC account could not be independently
confirmed.

    Earlier on Thursday an Iraqi Kurdish group said Iraqi troops were massed
close to its positions.

    Shazad Saib, Ankara representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK), said infantry units and 30 tanks had gathered near the PUK-held town
of Kifri, about 170 km (105 miles) north east of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

    ``We are taking this seriously and taking defensive measures,'' Saib told
Reuters.

    Iraqi artillery has stepped up its previously sporadic shelling of
Kurdish areas near Kifri since Tuesday, he said.

    The PUK has blamed the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for a
bomb explosion which killed 76 people in the Kurdish city Zakho on Monday.

    Iraq's other main Kurdish militia, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP),
has charged the PUK with the bombing.

    The PUK and KDP ostensibly share power in the Kurdish administration
which governs northern Iraq but they have been fighting for the last 10
weeks.

    An Iraqi opposition umbrella group said on Tuesday around 20,000 Turkish
troops had gathered on the border with northern Iraq close to Zakho.

    Turkish journalists in the area say the troop movement was probably
related to Ankara's fight against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels inside
Turkey.

    Iraq's Kurds have been under the protection of a Western air force based
in southern Turkey since 1991.
 REUTER    Transmitted: 95-03-02 14:13:43 EST


--- APS (Newsdesk)