Turkey seeks U.S. help with rebels http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-10-01T161706Z_01_L01871888_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-TURKEY-CEASEFIRE.xml&WTmodLoc=IntNewsHome_C2_worldNews-6
Sun Oct 1, 2006
By Daren Butler
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will urge the United States to take concrete action to crack down on Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq, newspapers said on Sunday, as a unilateral rebel ceasefire went into effect.
Amid growing violence in Turkey's southeast and a diplomatic push to break up the group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Saturday announced a halt to hostilities from northern Iraq, where some 5,000 of its Turkish Kurd militants are based.
Analysts said it was an opportunity to halt a 22-year-old separatist conflict which has killed more than 30,000 people. They warned violence would continue if steps were not taken in the political arena to solve the country's Kurdish problem.
Erdogan has dismissed the ceasefire. He said the PKK issue would be at the top of his agenda when he meets President Bush in Washington on Monday amid Turkish perceptions of a U.S. failure to act against the outlawed group. "If concrete steps are taken in northern Iraq the view of the USA will change. We expect concrete results from the meeting," Milliyet newspaper quoted Erdogan as saying.
Ankara and Washington have appointed coordinators to work together in the fight against the PKK and authorities in northern Iraq have shut down its offices. Turkey is now seeking more direct action to halt rebel activities. Turkey has also criticized Iraq for failing to act against the PKK, but Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, said the rebel group had no future.
"I believe we have just entered a period of normalization in our relations with Turkey. The thorn that prevented trust between us was the PKK. But now the PKK is finished. It has no future," he told Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia.
"WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY"
The ceasefire was prompted by U.S. pressure on northern Iraqi Kurdish leaders after Turkey threatened military strikes on the PKK's Iraqi bases, according to Ismet Berkan, editor of the liberal daily Radikal.
"The window of opportunity may not stay open for long. And we mustn't forget high-level U.S. initiatives opened this window. I hope we have a solid plan for what happens next."
"The one thing we need to solve the Kurdish problem is politics. Once the guns have fallen silent it will be possible to conduct politics in the region once again," he said.
The conflict is also fueled by deep poverty in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast which has failed to attract investment despite pledges by successive governments to boost development.
Turkey, which has NATO's second-largest army, has beefed up its military along the Iraqi border but Washington has warned against intervention in northern Iraq.
Erdogan is under pressure at home to crack down on the PKK to stem rising nationalism before national elections next year.
But he indicated the intensity of military action against the PKK could lessen if the rebels do lay down their arms.
"If the terror group keeps its word, the armed forces will not carry out operations without any reason," he said.
The PKK move came in the wake of a ceasefire call by its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, who launched the insurgency in 1984 in a bid to create a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey.
Violence dwindled after his 1999 capture. In the last two years it flared up again. A shadowy militant group believed to be linked to the PKK has claimed responsibility for a wave of bomb attacks against civilians across Turkey over the last year.
A bomb exploded outside a hospital in the southern Turkish city of Mersin on Sunday, injuring three, state-run Anatolian news agency said. There was no claim of responsibility.
Turkey's main Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), called on Ankara to improve the rights of the country's some 12 million Kurds to prevent further bloodshed.
(Additional reporting by Lefteris Papadimas in Athens)
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