Tensions remain high along Iraq's borders with Turkey and Iran

Apr 23, 2008 (The Institute for War & Peace Reporting - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX) -- -- Abdulla Saeed walks to a makeshift tent a few miles from his now deserted house. He's ferrying clothes and other essentials to eight family members who fled the incursion by Turkish troops into northern Iraq earlier this year.

The Turks said they were pursuing members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, who had sought refuge inside Iraq in the Qandil Mountains, a treacherous area that stretches along borders separating Turkey, Iraq and Iran.

Since 1984, the PKK, viewed as a terrorist group by the United States, has engaged in numerous bloody battles with Turkey over the treatment of Kurds in that country. Iran has also launched offensives against Kurdish militias that operate in that country near the border with Iraq.

There are no official accounts of the number of casualties or damage caused by the Turkish incursions. Local Kurdish leaders, however, say dozen of bridges and scores of homes were destroyed, and hundreds of families were forced to flee deeper into the mountains.

Hassan Wssu Marf, 59, is one of those who fled because of the fighting.

"We can't go back to raise our livestock or to take care of our orchards," he said. "It's terrible." Yet, support for the Kurdish rebels remains strong throughout the area.

"They are Kurds and demand their own rights," Saeed said. "Neither Iran nor Turkey wants (the fighters) along the Iraqi border because (they) prevent them from destabilizing Iraq." "I want (the PKK) to be victorious," said Goran Faris, 25, a secondary school teacher in Sulaimaniyah, the largest city in northeastern Iraq.

"I love them because they were the only ones who stood up to the Turkish incursion and defended Kurdistan," he said.

The PKK and its Iranian counterpart, known as the PJAK, insist they are fighting to defend oppressed Kurds in those countries.

Turkey and Iran maintain that the guerrillas are separatists. Both countries have expressed support for each other's military operations.

Syria has also expressed concern about the presence of Kurdish rebels in the volatile region and support for the Turkish incursion into Iraq.

For its part, the Kurdistan Regional Government, which controls much of northern Iraq, has said it would not oppose Turkish military actions across the border as long as operations are limited to attacks on PKK militias.

That's not a position that sits well with some Kurds in the border region.

"I wanted the peshmargas (the Kurdish militia) to confront the Turkish troops," Faris said. "Why do we have all of those fighters if not (to fight) for something like that?" Jabar Yawar, the minister who oversees the operations of Kurdish forces, insists the provincial government is defending Iraqi Kurds, while supporting the campaign against PKK rebels.

"We have condemned the incidents and told the entire world about them to put pressure on Turkey" to limit the incursions, he said.

Yawar said the provincial government had also asked Baghdad to provide compensation for families displaced by the fighting. Kurdish authorities also want Baghdad to pressure both Turkey and Iran to halt the frequent shelling of the border area.

While the fighting has declined in intensity in recent months, the frequent shelling from both the Turkish and Iran sides of the border makes it difficult for Kurdish families in Iraq to return home.

All parties insist they are interested in a negotiated settlement to end the current conflict. But as of now, no talks are scheduled.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Yahya Ahmed is a reporter in Iraq who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Readers may write to the author at the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, 48 Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 8LT, U.K.; Web site: www.iwpr.net. For information about IWPR's funding, please go to http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?top_supporters.html.

This essay is available to McClatchy-Tribune News Service subscribers. McClatchy-Tribune did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of McClatchy-Tribune or its editors.

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(c) 2008, The Institute for War & Peace Reporting

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