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 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

    Saddam's Tanks Machinegun Kurds
  ANKARA, March 3 (Reuter) - An Iraqi opposition group said government tanks
sprayed machinegun fire on a Kurdish-held town in northern Iraq on Friday, a
day after clashes with Kurdish fighters elsewhere in the region.

    Tanks fired their machineguns on civilian areas in the town of Kifri and
shot smoke shells into the air to determine future shelling targets, the
Iraqi National Congress (INC) said.

    The report could not be independently confirmed.

    The number of Iraqi tanks gathered near Kifri increased to about 55 on
Friday from 30 in recent days, a spokesman for the INC's London office told
Reuters in Ankara by telephone.

    He said tanks moved into Kurdish-held areas northeast of Kifri on
Thursday in an apparent bid by Baghdad to win back territory lost to the
Kurds in 1991 following the Gulf War.

    Thursday's reported tank push took place in the Chem Chamal district, 55
km (35 miles) south of a line defining a Kurdish enclave protected by Western
air power from Iraqi attacks. Kifri lies another 100 km (60 miles) further
south.

    The INC, an alliance of groups opposed to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein,
said Kurdish guerrillas repulsed one group of tanks and halted another on
Thursday.

    There were casualties on both sides and extensive damage to property, the
spokesman said. He could give few more details.

    Iraq's Kurds have been under the protection of a U.S.-led allied air
force based in southern Turkey since they broke from Baghdad's authority four
years ago.

    The two main Kurdish militia groups have fought with each other
frequently in the last 10 weeks.
REUTER    Transmitted: 95-03-03 14:19:42 EST

--- APS (Newsdesk))