Kurd rebels threaten attacks on all Turkish cities

Turkey says 130 Kurdish rebels killed, warns of more attacks
Ankara (AFP) June 18, 2010 - The Turkish military said Friday that at least 130 Kurdish rebels were killed in Turkey and neighbouring northern Iraq since March, warning that violence by the militants was set to rise further. The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been leading a 25-year insurgency against Turkey, has recently stepped up its attacks, prompting the army to carry out at least two air raids and a small-scale ground incursion on rebel bases in northern Iraq. The majority of the PKK losses came from a May 20 air strike on rebel hideouts in the Hakurk region of northern Iraq following intelligence that a large group of militants were moving towards Turkey, General Fahri Kir, the head of the internal security operations department, said. "It has been understood from information obtained that (the rebels) suffered more than 100 losses," Kir told a press conference here.

Thirty other PKK rebels were neutralized since the beginning of March, excluding those captured alive, the general said, adding: "Therefore, it is understood that their losses are about 130 over the past four months." Forty-three members of the security forces had been killed in the same period, he added. Kir said at least five militants were killed in a cross-border ground operation Wednesday into northern Iraq, backed by an air raid, in pursuit of rebels who had attacked border guards in the province of Sirnak. Intercepted wireless communication between the rebels "shows that their losses are... about 20," the general said. The soldiers taking part in the incursion returned to their bases the same day, he added.

There have been almost daily clashes and daring rebel attacks since June 1 when the PKK declared an end to a unilateral ceasefire which had been in place since April 2009. Kir said the PKK was trying to increase its attacks and spread them to areas outside the southeast, its usual theatre of operations, in a bid to solidify control over its forces and pressure the Ankara government to accept them as an interlocutor. "Our evaluation is that the separatist terrorist organization will continue to intensify its attacks until it believes it has created the image that it has sufficient influence over its grassroots and public opinion, that it controls the process and has seized the initiative," the general added. In the latest violence, a PKK rebel was killed and two others captured in fighting late Thursday in northeastern Turkey, a region where the rebels have been seeking a foothold, Kir said.

In the southeastern province of Hakkari, on the border with Iraq, a village guard -- a Kurdish militia paid and armed by the state to fight the PKK -- was killed and three others wounded when they came under rebel fire also late Thursday. The armed forces will pursue the PKK "with determination and patience until the separatist terrorist organization is neutralized," Kir said. The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community, picked up arms for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives. Last year, the government announced it would expand freedoms for its Kurdish population in a bid to cut popular support for the PKK and encourage the rebels to lay down their arms. The initiative however has since faltered as the country's top court banned the main Kurdish party, leading to Kurdish riots, and public opinion largely turned against the government amid bloody PKK attacks. Last month, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, serving a life sentence in Turkey, was quoted as saying that he was abandoning efforts to seek dialogue with Ankara "since I could not find an interlocutor."

by Staff Writers
Arbil, Iraq (AFP) June 19, 2010
The rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) threatened on Saturday to launch attacks in cities across Turkey if the Turkish army presses on with its policy of military confrontation.

"We will take our operations to all Turkish cities if the government continues its attacks against us," spokesman Ahmed Denis told AFP in the Iraqi Kurdistan regional capital of Arbil.

"Turkey wants to us take us towards war," he said. "She is not sincere in dealing with the Kurdish issue and doesn't want to deal with this issue peacefully.

"The measures she has taken so far are just a hoax," he added, in allusion to the so-called "Kurdish opening" announced by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan amid great fanfare last October.

The initiative has faltered amid an opposition outcry that Ankara is bowing to the PKK, as well as persistent rebel attacks and a judicial onslaught on Kurdish activists.

Denis's comments came after PKK fighters killed 11 Turkish soldiers in an attack on an army post and a mine explosion near the border, prompting retaliatory air raids on suspected rebel targets inside Iraq.

Erdogan denounced the attack on the army post in the far southeastern town of Semdinli as "cowardly" and vowed that it would have no effect on Turkey's determination to fight the PKK "to the end."

In a message of condolence to the armed forces chief, he said Turkey was willing to "pay the price" to "annihilate" the PKK.

On Friday, the Turkish military said it had lost 43 troops to PKK attacks since March. It said it had killed 130 rebel fighters inside Turkey and in an air raid on rebel hideouts in Iraq over the same period.

But Denis took issue with the rebel death toll given by the Turkish army. He said it was true that the PKK had lost 130 of its fighters but said that the losses covered a much longer period stretching back to April 2009.

The Turkish military had predicted that the PKK would further intensify and spread its attacks.

Erdogan charged on Friday that the rebels were seeking to undermine his government's initiative to boost Kurdish freedoms and investment in the country's impoverished southeast in a bid to peacefully end the conflict.

On Saturday, he said: "Turkey will not give in to the spiral of violence" unleashed by the PKK.

"We will not turn back on our commitment to democratisation which hinders the terrorist organisation," he said in a statement.

On Friday, Turkish prosecutors charged 151 Kurds, among them popular politicians, as part a massive investigation into an alleged urban wing of the PKK.

The conflict with the rebel group, considered a terrorist organisation by much of the international community as well as Ankara, has claimed more than 45,000 lives since it broke out in 1984, according to the Turkish army.

earlier related report
Kurd rebels claim deadly attack on Turkish army
Arbil, Iraq (AFP) June 19, 2010 - The rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said on Saturday that it carried out a deadly attack on the Turkish army that prompted retaliatory air raids inside Iraqi territory.

"The military operation took place this morning in the Shemdinyan (Semdinli in Turkish) area, in Hakkari province, and Turkish warplanes have started to attack the Khwakorek district inside Iraqi territory," PKK spokesman Ahmed Denis told AFP in the Iraqi Kurdistan regional capital of Arbil.

"We have no information so far about any casualties as the clashes are continuing between the PKK and the Turkish army inside Turkey," Denis added.

The Turkish army said the overnight attack had killed eight soldiers and wounded 14.

Warplanes then launched a bombing raid targeting suspected PKK positions across the border in northern Iraq, the army added.

On Friday, the Turkish military said that at least 130 members of the PKK had been killed inside Turkey and in an air raid on rebel hideouts in Iraq since violence flared anew in March.

The military lost 43 troops over the same period, it added.

On Wednesday, Turkish troops carried out their first ground incursion into Iraq in two and a half years, penetrating two kilometres (more than a mile) into the Haft Tanin district of Dohuk province, one of three that make up the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

"Two of our men were killed in the clashes that took place on Wednesday between the Turkish army and members of our party in Haft Tanin," Denis told AFP on Friday.

Semdinli in the far southeast of Turkey, where its borders with Iran and Iraq meet, is an emblematic target for the PKK as it is one of two places in Turkey that it attacked in 1984 when it announced the launch of its armed insurgency for Kurdish self-rule.

The town lies just across the border from the rugged Qandil mountains of far northeastern Iraq where the PKK maintains rear bases that have been repeatedly bombed or shelled by both Turkish and Iranian forces.

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