Turks poised to attack rebel Ku

[root at newsdesk.aps.nl]

From: newsdesk at newsdesk.aps.nl (Newsdesk Amsterdam)
Subject: Re: Turks poised to attack rebel Kurd camp in Iraq
Reply-To: root at newsdesk.aps.nl

-------------- Forwarded from : nytmx at mit.xs4all.nl (NY Transfer) --------------


Turks poised to attack rebel Kurd camp in Iraq
By Hidir Goktas

    ZAKHO, Iraq, Mar 25 (Reuter) - Turkish troops were poised to attack
a key Kurdish guerrilla post in Iraq Saturday in an anti-rebel
drive that has forced the United Nations to plan moving up to
2,000 Kurdish refugees from the conflict zone.
    Kurdish sources said several hundred Kurds, who originally
fled fighting between Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK) rebels and
the army, moved from near the border town of Zakho to two U.N.
camps at Atrush, 100 miles from Turkish territory.
    That would put them outside the 25-mile-deep zone that
Turkish authorities have mapped out as the limit of their
anti-PKK operation.
    The UNHCR has repeatedly expressed concern for the fate of
around 4,500 Turkish Kurd refugees in and around the border town
of Zakho, who it fears may be caught up in the Turkish thrust.
    Turkish troops near a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) mountain
camp at Haftanin, 19 miles east of Zakho, said they were close
to taking the position.
    But it was unclear whether any PKK fighters remained in the
camp. Aid workers said most had left the region weeks ago.
    Inside Turkey, guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan has ordered
his forces to launch diversionary attacks to undermine Ankara's
push into Iraq.
    ``You must continuously carry out actions to distract the
Turkish soldiers (in north Iraq),'' one security official quoted
Ocalan as saying in a radio message intercepted by the army.
    The cross-border operation, involving about 35,000 troops,
is causing growing concern in the West for the safety of Iraqi
Kurdish civilians and Kurdish refugees.
    In a guest column for the Bild am Sonntag weekly in Bonn,
German Labour Minister Norbert Bluem accused Turks of treating
minority Kurds worse than animals and said NATO could not stand
idly by while Kurds' human rights were trampled. He did not
elaborate.
    The Iraqi National Congress (INC), which groups opposition
to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, said Turkish shells on
Saturday killed an Iraqi civilian and wounded two in the village
of Kashan, near Zakho.
    Turkish authorities have said they are taking precautions to
ensure the safety of Iraqi Kurds but residents said Friday
Turkish jets had bombed their village, wounding one person.
    Six houses in the village of Dergele, 60 miles east of
Zakho, were badly damaged and residents said Friday that one
person had been injured in air strikes earlier in the week.
Turkey has denied the reports.
    Dozens of trucks and armored personnel carriers rolled
towards the mountains for what troops said would be a final push
on Haftanin, one of the main targets of the six-day-old drive.
    The army has killed 168 PKK fighters while 16 soldiers have
died, Anatolian news agency said Saturday. The PKK has put its
own death toll at either 11 or 13 against 178 Turks killed.
    Washington has pledged to keep daily watch on possible human
rights abuses by Turkish troops and leading European Union
nations have urged Turkey to put a swift end to the incursion.
    The Kurdish refugees in Zakho are among about 13,000 people
who streamed into Iraq last year, saying they fled fighting
between the army and the PKK. Some say their villages were
attacked by Turkish troops.
    Ankara maintains they were forced over the border by the PKK
to sully Turkey's image abroad.
    A convoy of 50 vehicles including trucks and minibuses was
ready to move the refugees to Atrush under U.N. guard Sunday,
said UNHCR spokesman Rupert Colville.
    ``Some are afraid to move. They have a real fear that they
will get mixed up with the fighters.''
    Colville said the UNHCR was cooperating with Iraqi Kurd
authorities in Zakho and was informing Turkish authorities of
its intentions.
    About 10,000 other Turkish Kurds refugees are encamped at
Atrush, outside the zone Turkish authorities have mapped out as
the limit of their anti-PKK operation.
 REUTER
Reut12:22 03-25

Reuter N:Copyright 1995, Reuters News Service

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