IN TURKEY, ATTACKS SHOW PKK STILL A REGIONAL FORCE

Summary
On Oct. 19, the Kurdish militant group Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) conducted eight attacks against Turkish security forces simultaneously, marking the deadliest attack the group has ever conducted as well as a significant shift in its tactics. Many regional actors, including Iran, Iraq and Turkey, are devising new security arrangements for when the United States withdraws its forces from Iraq. The PKK attacks show that the militant group is a force with which these actors must contend.

Analysis
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish militant group in Turkey, attacked eight different police and military installations Oct. 19 in Cukurca and Yuksekova, two districts in Hakkari province, Turkey, between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. An attack on Keklikkaya border post alone killed 21 Turkish soldiers. Initial reports suggest that between 100-200 militants crossed into Turkey from their hideouts in northern Iraq’s Qandil Mountains, and their attempts to return to Iraq are currently ongoing. According to Turkish sources, the attack left 24 Turkish troops dead and at least 18 injured, while the Turkish army’s counteroffensive allegedly has left some 23 PKK militants dead so far. The attack comes one day after a PKK attack against security forces in the southeastern city of Bitlis left five police officers and a child dead.

The events of Oct. 19 are the most lethal Turkey has seen since the PKK began its armed struggle against the country in 1984. The group clearly still has the ability to inflict heavy damage to the Turkish military despite the recent increase in airstrikes along the Turkey-Iraq border, dispelling rumors among the Turkish media and government that the group is dissolving under Ankara’s new strategy against it. Regional circumstances, specifically the planned U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the subsequent security arrangement among Turkey, Iran and Iraq, likely precipitated the attacks, prompting the PKK to deviate from its normal tactics by conducting a larger and multifaceted attack.

Indeed, the tactics used in the attack mark a significant shift in the PKK’s militant activity; rather than target a single military base, militants attacked several targets simultaneously. Turkish media report that the other border posts were attacked at the same time to prevent reinforcements from coming to Keklikkaya. Staging simultaneous attacks allowed the PKK to cut off security forces’ lines of support between targets and also served to create confusion, making rapid response to a single area under attack much more difficult. The Turkish military eventually responded by deploying commandos, helicopters and fighter jets over Iraqi soil as PKK militants returned there. Special operations personnel reportedly have taken positions at various points 7-8 kilometers (4.3-5 miles) into Iraqi territory to trap militants as they return to their hideouts, and an additional 500 soldiers have been deployed to assist in their efforts.

The Oct. 19 attacks come at a time when conditions in the region are changing. As the official deadline of  U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq approaches, it remains unclear how many — if any — U.S. troops will remain in Iraq. Meanwhile, all regional actors are watching for signs of increasing instability in northern Iraq. After several weeks of heavy Iranian bombardment against the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), the PKK’s Iranian arm, along the Iraq-Iran border — primarily a message from Iran to the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) about the risks of hosting U.S. troops after the withdrawal — the KRG reportedly reached a deal with Iran about PJAK’s status. According to this deal, PJAK will empty its bases near the Iranian border and KRG peshmerga will maintain security on the Iraqi side of the border. Though this is not an ideal situation for the PKK and PJAK, the militant groups seem to have agreed to the deal, possibly with the intent of driving a wedge between a potential Turkish-Iranian front against them. From the Kurdish perspective, this front formed when the two countries simultaneously attacked the PKK’s hideouts in August.

Wary of the KRG’s plans to increase its military presence in the north, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has introduced the idea of sending Iraqi troops to the northern region essentially to prevent the PKK from launching attacks on Turkey. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu welcomed the idea during Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari’s visit on Oct. 12, saying Turkey “would not need to conduct operations in northern Iraq if there is no threat emanating from there.” The PKK did not respond well to this apparent understanding between Ankara and Baghdad, which it saw as a counterbalance the deal between Tehran and the KRG. The Oct. 19 attack is part of the PKK’s response, one intended to claim the group is still a force to reckon with in the region.

Whether the PKK will conduct similar attacks in the near future remains to be seen. It has so far not been able to maintain militant activity on this scale for extended periods of time. The Turkish government, on the other hand, has not indicated that it will conduct a large scale land-based military incursion in northern Iraq, which would further increase the number of troop casualties. (Small-scale cross-border operations take place frequently, as do airstrikes.)

The Turkish government and the PKK and other Kurdish political forces want to test the limits of the other side and gain the upper hand in the lead up to redrafting sessions of the new Turkish constitution. It is no coincidence that such a major attack took place on the same day of the first meeting of the parliamentary committee tasked with negotiations to that end.

Copyright 2011 STRATFOR.

PKK, which is recognized as a terrorist group by much of the international community, has been fighting the central government in Turkey since 1984 in quest for an independent state in southwestern Turkey.

“The arrest of [PKK leader Abdullah] Ocalan shows the extent of foreign support for the terrorist group. He was arrested in the house of Greek ambassador to Kenya while holding a Southern Cyprus passport,” Fars News Agency quoted Yardim as saying on Sunday.

Stressing that PKK and its offshoot, the Party for Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), are both “problematic” entities for Iran and Turkey, Yardim said, “We understand better than anyone else the situation of our Iranian friends in combating terrorist groups.”

PJAK terrorists regularly engage in armed clashes with Iranian security forces along the country’s western borders with Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

Press TV

The terrorist groups of PJAK and PKK keep irritating Iran and Turkey, and therefore the two countries can launch “organized” operations against the groups, but organized operations do not mean joint operations, Hosseinpour told reporters after his recent meeting with Turkish Parliament speaker Cemil Cicek.

Enormous damages have been inflicted upon Iran and Turkey during their fights against the terrorists, and thus the two countries can cooperate (on this matter), he added.

Turkish media reported recently that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said that Iran and Turkey may launch a joint operation against the PKK.

via ‘Iran, Turkey have no plan to launch joint operation against PJAK, PKK’ – Tehran Times.

Bombing victims’ families plan for justice

Sherwan Hussein Mustafa and his brother speak about filing lawsuits against Turkey for the death of their entire family in an air strike.

Sherwan Hussein Mustafa had seven family members killed, including his mother and father, last month “in a massive raid by Turkish warplanes” against the hideouts of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerillas inside Iraqi Kurdistan Region territory. Mustafa told The Kurdish Globe he will do anything, “no matter how many years it takes”, to get justice for his family.

Mustafa was living in Britain when he received the news that almost his entire family had been killed by Turkish warplanes. He has since returned to Kurdistan Region, and says his only mission in life is “to bring those who are behind the killing of my family to justice.”

Mustafa’s family was working on the farm in the mountainous area of Qandil. As they heard Turkish warplanes bombing the Qandil Mountains, the family decided to leave the farm to go to their second house in Ranya city, near the Qandil Mountains. On the way to Ranya in their pickup truck, “Turkish warplanes targeted them and turned their bodies into many small pieces.” Their deaths created a furious anger across the Region and led to tens of demonstrations. A mass funeral was held for the family in Ranya.

A committee of lawyers, members of Parliament and civil society activists has formed to take the Iranian and Turkish violations of the Kurdistan Region to international courts. A well-known Kurdish lawyer and member of the committee, Abdulrahman Zebari, said the committee will investigate the killing of civilians by Iranian and Turkish bombardments and collect as much evidence as possible, with the aim of changing the case from “local crime to international crime”.

Zebari has seven years of experience in cases of genocide and crimes against humanity; he defended Kurdish people at the Iraqi Special Tribunal against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. He said after collecting enough evidence, he will take the case to the United Sates, because according to the Status of Forces Agreement between Iraq and the U.S., it says there must be judicial cooperation between the two countries.

Zebari criticized the Iraqi government for not respecting its people or defending them. “Unfortunately, the cheapest thing in Iraq is the life of human being. The Iraqi people have lost faith in justice.” He added, “Now the biggest problem in Iraq is not about democracy; there is democracy in Iraq. The biggest problem is justice.”

Another lawyer, Fawzia Faqe, blamed the Kurdistan Regional Government for not taking concrete actions or using all cards available against the Turkish and Iranian violations. Shockingly, Turkey has not apologized for killing civilians and also denies it, Faqe noted.

“Look what Turkey has done to Israel after Israel refused to apologize to Turkey for killing eight Turkish citizens [for the May 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla incident],” she said. Kurdistan has a strong trade card in its hand and it should use it to punish Turkey and Iran, she added.

Immediately, after the killing of the seven civilians, the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, denied that the families had been killed by Turkish warplanes. He said “the family was killed by a landmine.”

Mustafa was extremely angry and shocked at the Turkish foreign minister’s statement. He said the statement made him decide to dedicate his life to getting justice.

In the meantime, Zebari said the committee has a lot of evidence to prove the family was killed by Turkish planes. “We have 10 witnesses who saw when the missile hit the family’s vehicle. We have the remains of the missile that hit the vehicle and the way the vehicle was hit it also explains that it was hit by a missile, not a landmine.”

The committee believes in patience, even if it takes five to 10 years to get justice for the family

via KurdishGlobe- Kurdistan to file lawsuit against Turkey and Iran.

September 17, 2011 02:01 AM

By Daren Butler

Reuters

ISTANBUL: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has signaled Turkey could launch a joint operation with Iran against Kurdish militants’ main base in northern Iraq, according to reports in Turkish newspapers Friday.

In August, Turkey carried out a series of air and artillery strikes against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels in northern Iraq and the interior minister said this week a ground operation could be launched any time against the guerrillas there, depending on talks with Iraq.

The military action was triggered by an increase in PKK attacks in southeast Turkey in which dozens of security personnel were killed.

Speaking to reporters while traveling to Tunisia on a north African tour, Erdogan said the minister’s comment had been a slip of the tongue that had been corrected, and that there would be no forewarning of any such operation.

“Things like this are not said, they are done,” the Hurriyet daily quoted the prime minister as saying. The same comments were reported by other newspapers in Turkey.

“The chief of the general staff has completed assessments in the region [southeast Turkey] together with force commanders,” he said.

Speculation about a ground offensive was fuelled when Erdogan met military chiefs before he departed on his trip to North Africa.

When asked in Tunisia about relations with Iran and cooperation against the PKK, Erdogan said: “It’s going well. We may act together at Qandil.”

The Qandil mountains are on the Iraq-Iran border and the main PKK bases are located in those mountains, a part of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region around 80-100 km south of the Turkish border.

Kawa Mahmoud, a spokesman for the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, told Reuters it did not give Turkey approval for any military operations in its territory.

“No government would accept this … using force would expand the areas of tension and would not serve the interests of the countries,” he said.

Iran, Turkey’s southeastern neighbor, said this month its troops had killed or wounded 30 members of the PJAK (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan), an offshoot of the PKK that is reported to have launched ambushes on the Iranian side of the border.

The Turkish military has said its strikes against the PKK in Iraq in August killed 145 to 160 militants. The PKK has only referred to a few casualties and the figures could not be independently confirmed.

A Turkish diplomat has been in Iraq for talks with the government this week as Ankara seeks more cooperation against the PKK from Iraq, whose large Kurdish minority, concentrated in the north, is politically influential.

Turkey has launched several cross-border air and ground operations in northern Iraq in a conflict that first erupted in the 1980s. The PKK is fighting for greater autonomy and Kurdish rights, having earlier sought a separate state.

More than 40,000 people have died in the conflict and fighting has escalated over this summer.

The last major incursion was in early 2008, when Turkey sent 10,000 troops, backed by air power, into northern Iraq.

Erdogan’s comments also indicated a tougher approach on the Kurdish issue generally after government efforts to negotiate a solution failed to yield a result.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on September 17, 2011, on page 8.

via THE DAILY STAR :: News :: Middle East :: Turkey may work with Iran against Kurdish rebels.

TURKEY-COUNTER-TERRORISM – Iraqi diplomat says Turkish cross-border crackdown on PKK fine by Baghdad

Iraqi ambassador in Ankara has said the Baghdad government would sanction a cross-border operation by the Turkish ground forces to hunt down PKK terrorists in Iraq’s north, which the terrorist organization uses as a launchpad to attack targets inside Turkey.

“This is not an easy question to answer but as you know everything between the two countries must happen in line with the agreements we signed earlier. If it is by the book, anything is fine by us. Turkey’s security is Iraq’s security,” Abdul Amir Kamil Abi-Tabikh told reporters Wednesday in a meeting with Mustafa Kamalak, chairman of Felicity Party. Turkey last entered into northern Iraq in February 2008 to crush PKK with as many as 10 thousand troops backed by warplanes and artillery.(İMB-MS)

AA

24 Aug 2011

Aug 20th 2011

Erdogan and Assad in happier days

IN A small café outside Istanbul’s Fatih mosque, a slight bearded man lifts his shirt to reveal two deep bullet wounds. “Assad’s soldiers did this to me,” says Motee Albatee, who served as an imam at a Sunni mosque in the besieged Syrian town of Deraa until he fled the country several weeks ago. Mr Albatee is among a growing number of Syrian dissidents who have found sanctuary in Turkey, many of them in refugee camps near the border. Some are angry over the reluctance of Turkey’s government to get tougher with Bashar Assad, Syria’s president. “Turkey must set up a buffer zone [inside Syria]” to protect more refugees from the fighting, insists Yayha Bedir, a member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Like many seated around the table, he believes only drastic action will force the Syrian army to defect en masse, bringing down Mr Assad’s brutal regime.

Such talk is particularly loud online, where Syrian tweeters have voiced disdain for Turkey’s attempts to get Mr Assad to end the bloodshed. Their fury grew earlier this month when Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, flew to Damascus to deliver what Turkish officials tautologically called a final ultimatum. “We are at the end of our tether,” roared Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister.

Mr Assad’s response was to intensify his assaults against unarmed civilians, notably in the Mediterranean port of Latakia (see article). This prompted Mr Davutoglu to issue yet another warning: Turkey would not, he said, “remain indifferent” to continuing massacres. Yet he also ruled out intervening to create a buffer zone. So what leverage does Turkey actually have over its erstwhile Ottoman dominion?

None whatsoever, say critics of Mr Davutoglu’s much-vaunted “zero problems with the neighbours” policy. That is unfair. But as Soli Ozel, a political scientist, puts it, the Syrian crisis has revealed that “Turkey isn’t as influential as it thought.”

The last time Turkey got tough with its southern neighbour was in 1998, when it threatened to invade unless Syria booted out Abdullah Ocalan, leader of Turkey’s outlawed rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Syrians caved in, and relations between the two countries have flourished since. Trade has more than tripled in the eight years of Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) government, visas have been abolished and ministerial meetings have been held amid much fanfare. (Mr Davutoglu says he has made over 60 visits to Syria.) Crucially, Syria has ended its patronage of the PKK.

Rapprochement with Syria has also allowed Turkey to play a bigger regional role. The government came close to brokering a peace deal between Syria and Israel before the plan was scuppered by Israel’s attack on Gaza. Some Turks hoped that engagement with Syria would eventually yank Mr Assad out of the orbit of Iran, his biggest patron, and set him on a path towards reform. (His alleged involvement in the 2005 car-bomb assassination of Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese president, was quietly ignored.) All the more reason for Turkey’s feelings of betrayal.

Turkey’s Western allies are not about to mount an invasion of Syria. But they are turning the diplomatic screws, and are eager for AK to sever political and trade links with Mr Assad. But a bigger prize would be to drive a wedge between Turkey and Iran. Turkey’s mollycoddling of the mullahs has angered America, most recently when Mr Erdogan’s government voted against imposing further sanctions on Iran at the United Nations last year. Turkey has since sought to make amends. It has agreed to NATO plans for a nuclear-defence missile shield that is clearly aimed at Iran. And after some dithering, it is co-operating with the alliance’s military operations in Libya.

Yet Turkey is understandably wary of openly confronting Iran, one of its main sources of natural gas and the primary transit route for Turkish exports to Central Asia. Iran has also helped Turkey in its battle against the PKK—though it continues to flirt with hardliners who oppose any deal with the Turkish government. Lately the PKK has been stepping up the fight—some 30 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the past month. On August 17th, in a bid to quell mounting public anger, Mr Erdogan authorised the bombing of hundreds of PKK targets inside Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. But such actions have failed in the past and the last thing Turkey needs is a hostile Iran.

Besides, many of AK’s pious constituents see the unrest in Syria as yet another America-backed Zionist plot to pit Turkey against Iran. The ultimate goal, their thinking goes, is to cut Turkey down to size. Disappointingly, the same line is parroted by the main opposition Republican People’s Party, for all its claims of change under its new leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

So what are Turkey’s options? It can withdraw its ambassador from Damascus, continue to intercept the flow of weapons to Syria and impose economic sanctions. Other than that, as Mr Ozel suggests, it should desist from promising any more than it can deliver.

www.economist.com, Aug 20th 2011

AK Parti’nin 10. kuruluş yıldönümünde isim vermeden BDP‘ye ve PKK‘ya sert mesajlar gönderen Başbakan Erdoğan, “Bıçak kemiğe dayandı, bedeli ağır olacak” dedi.

AK Parti Genel Başkanı ve Başbakan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “‘Şu mübarek ramazan ayında maalesef yavrularımız şehit ediliyor ve yavrularımızı şehit eden bu bölücü terör örgütüne karşı, bizler şu anda bu mübarek ay vesilesiyle sabırla devam ediyoruz. Ama unutmayın bizim medeniyetimizin geçmişinde, o cehalet döneminde bile kimse kimseye kurşun atmaz, kan dökmezdi. İşte bu bölücü terör örgütü ve onların siyasi uzantıları bakınız neler yapıyorlar. Daha dün 3 tane yavrumuzu şehit ettiler. Bakınız, unutmayın artık yine açık söylüyorum, bıçak kemiğe dayanmıştır diyorum ve bu ülkede bölücü terör örgütüyle arasına mesafe koymayanlar da bu suça iştirak ediyorlar, bunu da buradan açıklamak istiyorum ve onlar da bunun bedelini ödemeye mahkum olacaklardır” dedi.

Başbakan Erdoğan, “Ramazana hürmeten, biz şu anda sabrediyoruz ama Ramazanın bitiminden sonra bilesiniz ki bu ülkede barışın miladı, bu barış ayıyla beraber, bu dayanışma ayıyla birlikte çok daha farklı olacak” diye konuştu.

www.cnnturk.com, 15.08.2011

Militants from the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party patrol the area around a PKK base in northern Iraq.

ERCAN YAVUZ, ANKARA

An intelligence report prepared by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and presented at a National Security Council (MGK) meeting on Feb. 24 suggests that the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has been forging new ties with the state of Israel. The report also notes that the PKK has plans for a serhildan, the Kurdish word for uprising, in the spring in an attempt to manipulate the June 12 general elections. A senior security official, who asked not to be named, shared information about the intelligence gathered on the PKK with Today’s Zaman. According to the information, the group earlier this month ended a cease-fire it had announced late last summer.

It also says some countries in the region seem to have convinced the PKK to re-launch its attacks ahead of the elections. The same official says that intelligence reports indicate Israel has intensified its contact with the PKK in retaliation for a meeting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had with Hezbollah during a visit to Lebanon. Intelligence reports say the PKK is concerned about a drop in the votes of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), whose candidates will run as independents. For this reason, the decision to end the cease-fire came easily for the PKK, which is trying to stop Kurdish votes from slipping to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). The terrorist group has plans to hold constant demonstrations and clashes in the Southeast and in eastern provinces with a significant Kurdish population.

PKK-Israel links
The MİT report presented during the MGK meeting in late February chaired by President Abdullah Gül also includes interviews with various PKK militants on the terrorist group’s action strategy for this spring. In these interviews, the militants confessed to having received training from Mossad officials.

MİT also has footage from an interview in which PKK second-in-command Murat Karayılan says the PKK attacked the İskenderun naval base during the May 2010 flotilla crisis, in which Israel killed nine Turks on board a Gaza-bound civilian aid ship sailing in international waters. In the video, Karayılan says the PKK and Israel worked together during the Mavi Marmara incident. Experts say this video is evidence that the PKK and Israel work in coordination in some of the terrorist group’s attacks. The interview has already been aired on an Israeli television station.

PKK action strategy
The report also says the PKK plans to put pressure on Kurdish voters. It is planning a dramatic attack to make it clear that it has ended its cease-fire. The group was also inspired by the recent uprisings rocking the Arab world. Today, International Women’s Day, and the three-day-long spring festival of Nevruz, celebrated around March 20, will be the dates the PKK will focus on to start its campaign of agitation and chaos. It also has plans to sabotage the election rallies of political parties in the region other than those of the BDP.

The PKK’s real concern is weakened support for the BDP in the region, but it will use as an argument for its attacks and demonstrations the slowdown in the government’s democratic initiative process.

The plan includes nighttime demonstrations, press statements, illegal protests and passing out declarations. They will also engage in demonstrations that they will call “acts of civil disobedience” during visits from Prime Minister Erdoğan and officials of other political parties.

The PKK also seeks to carry its demonstrations to cities with sizable Kurdish populations, such as İstanbul, Mersin, Adana, İzmir and Ankara. As has happened in the past, they are expected to use children in the front line during demonstrations in these cities. Intelligence information also suggests that the PKK will seek to manipulate the Kurds in the Southeast by passing out anti-Kurdish declarations. In fact, such fliers, referring to those participating in pro-Kurdish demonstrations as “anarchical punks and lowlifes” were passed around in Yüksekova, Hakkari province, on Feb. 19, 2011. It included other expressions likely to provoke the Kurdish people.

www.todayszaman.com, 08 March 2011