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| Europe |
| PKK says Ankara is 'weaving plots' to divide Kurds |
| 2008-10-15 |
| The military commander of the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has accused Ankara of seeking conflict with Iraqi Kurds through its charges that they are sheltering rebel fighters in their mountainous semi-autonomous region. "Turkey wants to drag the Kurdistan region into war by accusing Iraqi Kurds of harboring us," Murat Karayilan told AFP in an interview in his remote mountain hideout in northern Iraq. His comments came as a Turkish delegation prepared to meet the president of the Iraqi Kurdish region, Massud Barzani, in Baghdad to discuss Ankara's grievances. "Their main objective is to weaken the Iraqi Kurds' position in their disputes with Baghdad," said Karayilan, who heads the PKK's military wing in its quarter-century-old insurgency against Turkish rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast. "Turkey's bombing of our camps in the mountains is aimed at stirring up the Kurdistan region and at weaving plots on the Kirkuk issue," he added. The Iraqi Kurds have long demanded the incorporation of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in their semi- autonomous region, but Baghdad has opposed their claims, fearing that the province's rich revenues will give a boost to Kurdish nationalist ambitions. Turkey has championed the interests of the province's Turkmen minority, who, like the Arab settlers poured in by executed President Saddam Hussein's regime, are strongly opposed to any change in the status quo. Turkish warplanes have been bombing Kurdish rebel hideouts across the border in northern Iraq since PKK militants killed 17 soldiers in an attack against a border outpost on October 3. Turkish military and civilian leaders have held a series of talks on tougher action against the rebels after Parliament renewed authorization for a possible ground incursion into northern Iraq following the border attack. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Whereas I suppose the PKK wants to unite the Kurds behind Vladimir Putin? |
| Posted by: Tranquil Mechanical Yeti 2008-10-15 10:19 |
| #1 Sweating, are they? Good. Little commie bastards. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2008-10-15 07:54 |