UPI’s Energy Editor, Ben Lando, writes on his blog, Iraq Oil Report:
Turkey’s Prime Minister was in Washington, meeting with President Bush while American Kurds protested outside, as the decision on whether to invade Iraq draws near.
Prime Minister Erdogan said he’d wait until after the meeting to make the call on going after the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkish Kurdish guerillas who want more rights for Turkish Kurds.
“Turkish Kurdish guerillas who want more rights for Turkish Kurds”? Lando and others who cover this story surely must be aware that PKK’s followers refer to this area as northern Kurdistan. Why soft pedal on their objective to conquer this territory and enjoin it with northern Iraq, or as they refer to it, southern Kurdistan?
Lando also links to this report:
Iraqi officials have pledged to crack down on PKK activities and U.S. officials have launched a diplomatic offensive to persuade Turkish officials not to invade. On Sunday, U.S. officials served as the go-between in the release of eight Turkish soldiers who’d been captured by the PKK and on Monday, President Bush will meet in Washington with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in what may be the last best hope of heading off Turkish military action.
But Turkish officials have expressed skepticism that the U.S. and Iraq are sincere in their pledges to disband the PKK or its sister organization, PEJAK, which launches attacks inside Iran. The PKK sentry said there’s no difference between his group and PEJAK, the initials for Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan.
“We are the same. We are fighting for the same purpose,” said the sentry here. Ordinarily, he said, PEJAK mans this location. The man refused to give his name and wouldn’t permit photographs.
Days of traveling throughout northern Iraq show that the PKK can count on widespread support from local residents, despite recent official statements from the region’s two dominant political parties that “we do not support the PKK, or allow any assistance to be provided to them.”
By most accounts, the guerrillas of the PKK and PEJAK are allowed to roam freely in Iraq’s Kandil Mountains, a seemingly impenetrable terrain of jagged spires that is believed to be a safe haven and training ground for thousands of Kurdish fighters. Neither the peshmerga nor Iraq’s national military have moved to root out the guerrillas. The United States has expressed no willingness to do so either.
Expressions of sympathy are frequent. Few here see the PKK as a terrorist group.
“There is nothing more important than realizing a dream of a united Kurdistan,” said Kader Hama Amin, a peshmerga fighter whose home overlooks the trail in Qaladiza as it disappears into Iran. “It’s the right of any people to have their own homeland.”