TRKNWS-L NEWS from Vic McDonald

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


KURDS UNDER HEAVY ATTACK  3/20/95

Mercury News Wire Services

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Tens of thousands of Turkish troops poured into
northern Iraq today to wipe out the bases of Turkish Kurdish guerrillas
fighting for autonomy.

The operation is the largest of its type in three years, and included air
attacks on the camps in northern Iraq, where rebels stage hit-and-run attacks
against Turkey. A military spokesman said 76 bombs were dropped on a single
camp alone.

No casualty figures were immediately available.

Military and local sources said fighter jets and Cobra helicopters were
backing 35,000 ground troops and 50 armored vehicles who moved into the
rugged mountain terrain. The operation was launched after Kurdish rebels
killed 15 Turkish soldiers in an ambush near the Iraqi border Saturday.

It apparently also was timed to thwart any terrorist attacks or other
violence on the Kurdish new year on Tuesday.

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.

German police also suspect the party is behind recent firebombings of Turkish
targets in Germany, most recently a Molotov cocktail thrown at a mosque
Sunday night in Bonn.

The U.S. military said it was canceling its routine flights over northern
Iraq today because of the fighting. American warplanes based in southern
Turkey have patrolled the area since 1991 to protect Iraq's dissident Kurds
from Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

''It was not a scheduled down day. But we are not flying today,'' U.S. Air
Force 1st Lt. Patrick Ryder told The Associated Press from Incirlik airbase
in Turkey.

The Turkish troops targeted 12 camps in an area covering 130 square miles.

A military spokesman, Col. Ihsan Ongun, told reporters at the foreign
ministry that the operation would continue until all Kurdish rebel bases in
northern Iraq were wiped out. These bases replaced camps destroyed in a
similar Turkish operation in 1992.

Ongun said there were up to 2,800 Turkish Kurdish guerrillas at the camps.

In the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, Chief of Staff spokesman Col. Dogu
Silahcioglu told reporters that 14 jet fighters joined the operation and
dropped a total of 76 bombs in the Bote region.

Silahcioglu said 50 armored vehicles were also part of the operation. The
soldiers were mostly commandos, but also included mechanized troops, he said.

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

One of the Iraqi Kurdish factions denounced Turkey's offensive as ''a
clear-cut violation of Iraq's territorial integrity.''

In a statement issued in London, the Kurdistan Democratic Party said the area
''has no PKK bases and is strictly populated by Iraqi Kurds.'' The party
appealed to the United Nations and the U.S.-led alliance to pressure Turkey
to pull out its forces.

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 mountainous region where the borders
of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey converge.
MERCURY CENTER           Transmitted:  95-03-20 12:57:34 EST

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.
 REUTER      Transmitted: 95-03-20 09:57:06 EST


Kurds stone police, Turks protest in Swiss cities

    BASLE, Switzerland, March 19 (Reuter) - Kurdish protesters pelted police
with stones and police replied with teargas after authorities closed down a
Kurdish cultural centre in this Swiss city, officials said on Sunday.

    The disturbances in Basle late on Saturday followed fire-bomb attacks on
Turkish travel agencies in two other northern Swiss towns and demonstrations
in Zurich over alleged police violence in Turkey.

    In neighbouring Germany Turkish businesses were firebombed for the six
consecutive night in attacks linked by German police to Kurdish unrest.

    A police statement in Basle said the Kurds, chanting slogans in support
of the Kurdish (communist) Workers' Party (PKK), blocked traffic near the
city's old town and responded with volleys of stones when a riot squad tried
to disperse them.

    A policeman and a policewoman were injured but the 200-odd protesters
later agreed to leave the area, the statement said.

    Earlier on Saturday, police fired rubber bullets after Kurds in the
cultural centre threw missiles in a bid to prevent the building being
forcibly evacuated and six people were detained.

    Police said they moved against the centre after the Kurdish association
which ran it ignored a deadline to leave because fire and other safety
regulations had not been observed.

    The fire-bomb attacks took place early on Saturday in the towns of Aarau
and Saint Gallen, and followed similar incidents earlier last week in Basle
and Zurich.

    Police said no-one was hurt although there was extensive damage in both
attacks, believed linked to tension between the large ethnic Turkish and
Kurdish communities in the eastern part of Switzerland.

    A man of Kurdish origin had been detained after the incident in Aarau,
police there said.

    In Zurich, Turkish Moslem Alawites and Turkish and Kurdish communists
staged separate demonstrations to protest against police violence in Istanbul
and Ankara and the Turkish army's drive against Kurdish separatists.

    In the suburb of Oerlikon, about 2,000 Alawites from all over Switzerland
marched in protest at the violence in Turkey over the past week in which
leaders of the community in Istanbul say at least 30 people died.

    Similar marches were held in German, Austrian and French cities on
Saturday.

    The Alawites, who follow a moderate version of Islam, say Turkish police
targetted them in demonstrations after Islamic fundamentalists attacked
coffee shops in an Alawite area of Istanbul, sparking riots.

    The Oerlikon protesters declined to join the extreme left-wing protest in
central Zurich. ``We want a social democracy in Turkey, not extremism,'' one
told Swiss television. Both marches passed off without incident.

    Kurds in Basle interviewed on Swiss television said the police had used
undue violence in the incidents there. ``They seem to be treating all Kurds
the same, whether we are moderates or not, just like the police in Germany,''
one said.

    Basle, in northern Switzerland, is close to the border with France and
Germany. Switzerland has given shelter to many Kurds from Turkey, but has
recently begun to crack down on foreigners who fail to observe residence
rules.

    It also has a large population of Turkish workers, especially in
German-speaking towns in the northeast.

 REUTER               Transmitted: 95-03-19 08:29:54 EST


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