Turkey: Retaliation keeps the battle going
According to a statement by HPG – Kurdistani forces, Rostam Judy was killed on 10th October 2011 by the Turkish airforce in the Jolmerk region, along with six other leaders of KCK, and Kurdish forces retaliated. Kurdish Rustam Judy (originally Rustan Othman), born 1965 is originally from Sere Kaniyeh in Syria; he was a humble man, and very intelligent, a man who had high morals. He was a member of KCK’s executive council and of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party – PKK.
In the retaliatory attack, eighty-one Turkish soldiers were killed and seven Kurdish fighters died.
Turkey is holding Abdullah Ocalan in isolation, there is a campaign of institutional terror, and an escalation in the political campaign of genocide against the Kurdish nationalists.
Along with Rustam Judi, the following people were killed:
- Chichek Botan – member of the leading committee of “Ouija Star” forces and a member of the Central Committee of the PKK;
- Ali Sher Kojghari – member of the Steering Committee of the Kurdistan People’s Defense Forces – HPG;
- Nazli Jan;
- Dr. Amara;
- Roj Amara;
- and Ashraf.
Turkish forces have been attacking the area including inside Kurdistan, since 17 August 2001 in collaboration with foreign powers.
SKS comment: The Kurdish issue has been going for a long time, and needs resolution. Too many people are dying in this conflict, on both sides, and the killing needs to stop.
The Turkish government is playing a pivotal role in the Middle East and is quick to criticise others who rule using fear and persecution against minority groups, but at the same time the Kurds in Turkey are experiencing this kind of treatment in their historic homelands. There have been some concessions over the past few years however these are peripheral rather than significant changes:
‘The denial of Kurdish identity through assimilation and continued repression of successive Turkish governments lies at the heart of the Kurdish question, which has gone unresolved for more than 90 years. […]
Back home, the civil rights of 20 million Kurds in Turkey have been gradually eroded. The EU acknowledges this is “a serious cause for concern” in a country where more than 3,000 Kurdish activists are in detention. The EU has called on Turkey this week to bring its justice system into line with international standards and amend its anti-terrorism legislation.
On Tuesday, under the same anti-terrorism legislation, more than 120 members of the BDP, including the party’s deputy leader, were arrested.
So sensitive is Turkey to anyone acknowledging the plight of the Kurds that the novelist and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk was charged and tried for “public denigration of Turkish identity”, after mentioning in a 2005 interviewthat “30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it”.
Challenging Turkey’s approach to the Kurdish question and other human rights issues within the country is all but impossible. The International Press Institute has expressed “serious concern” at the continued imprisonment of at least 64 journalists and named Turkey as the country with the “highest number of journalists in prison in the world” – surpassing Iran and China’
See:
http://supportkurds.org/news/turkey-fires-on-kurds-in-iraq
http://supportkurds.org/sks/turkey
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also:
Turkish forces ‘kill 49 Kurdish rebels’
Turkey launched a major military offensive after 24 of its soldiers were killed
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Turkish forces have killed at least 49 Kurdish militants in two days during clashes near the Iraqi border, the country’s military says.
The militants are thought to have been killed in the Kazan Valley region of Turkey’s Hakkari province. There was no immediate confirmation from rebels.
Turkey launched an offensive against Kurdish PKK rebels on Wednesday after 24 of its troops were killed near Iraq.
It was the deadliest toll against the Turkish military since the 1990s.
The latest violence occurred near the town of Cukurca.
“A total of 49 terrorists were rendered ineffective over the last two days,” said Turkey’s General Staff in a statement posted on its website on Saturday, adding that the operation was continuing.
More than 30 of the rebels were killed on Saturday, the Hurriyet newspaper’s website reported.
Ankara has said 22 battalions, or about 10,000 soldiers, have been taking part in the operation against the rebels.
In recent months, violence between the army and Kurdish rebels from the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) has mounted.
PKK guerrillas are seeking greater autonomy in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated south-east.
Tens of thousands of people have died in the conflict since 1984.
On Friday, Turkey and Iran vowed to co-operate to defeat separatist Kurdish militants.
The Kurdish militants posed a “common problem” for Turkey and Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on an unscheduled trip to Ankara.
Turkey vowed jointly to “totally eliminate” the “terrorist threat”.
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PKK-Turkey conflict turns north Iraq town into prison
The latest violence between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeast Turkey in 1984, began early Wednesday when PKK fighters killed 24 Turkish soldiers in a series of attacks. Turkey then launched air and ground attacks on the PKK in Turkey and Iraq.
The Turkish army said on its website that the majority of the air and ground operations were inside Turkey, but “ground and air strikes are ongoing in a few points in northern Iraq across the border.”
The operations follow a weeks-long Turkish bombardment campaign against PKK bases in the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq that began in mid-August and continued well into September.
Residents of Shila Dizah in Iraq’s northernmost province of Dohuk can travel to the provincial capital and other villages. They generally go about their normal lives, shopping, sitting in cafes and praying at the local mosque.
But because of the threat of Turkish shelling and air strikes, residents fear crossing the mountain north of Shila Dizah and cannot access their farms in the region. “It’s like we live in a big prison — you cannot move around,” said Nihad, a 36-year-old cab driver. People “just stay in the town.”
“The Turks … do not make a distinction between armed forces and civilians,” he said.
But he also called on the PKK to leave bases in northern Iraq so that abandoned or destroyed villages along the border can be rebuilt, and life return to normal. The parties to the conflict are not far from Shila Dizah.
What local residents said is a Turkish military camp is located several kilometres (miles) up the road from the town. And a member of the Kurdish security forces said PKK members were on a bridge a few kilometres further on.
Because of the conflict, life “has been affected in many ways. People cannot go out of this town to the mountains,” said Hajji, a 40-year-old who runs a fruit and vegetable shop in Shila Dizah.
“You have to stay in the main towns and cities,” he said. People “used to go to their farms and spend the day there,” but not now.” Residents of the town, he said, are afraid. “For the Turkish army, it doesn’t make any difference if they kill a PKK (member) or us — we’re still Kurdish,” he said.
Abdullah, a 33-year-old who works as a beekeeper and does maintenance at a local school, also accused Turkish forces of indiscriminate attacks.
He said he had been working on his farm, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Shila Dizah, for 13 years. But because of the Turkish bombardment in August, “everything is burned up, and all the effort was for nothing.”
He has not been able to go back for fear of Turkish strikes — observation aircraft operate in the area and warplanes can be there within 30 minutes, he said, adding that shelling also posed a threat.
“I was there once and they shelled the area with about 20 artillery shells,” he said.
But, he added, “the blame is not only on the Turks.” It was up to “the Turks, the PKK and the local government to find a solution for this, for what is happening to me and other people.”
Abdullah said that when Turkish jets overfly the town, residents are afraid. Turkey bombed Shila Dizah in 1994, he said, killing his brother’s wife. “There is no guarantee that this will not happen again any time a jet flies” over.
Sulaiman, 24, whose main income is from his farm 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Shila Dizah, has been unable to go there “for about three months.” “We face daily air raids behind this mountain,” he said, pointing north of the town. “We are scared, we can’t go there … Last night they bombed there until two in the morning.”
Asked if he was angry at his fellow Kurds in the PKK, he said: “No, the Turks. They don’t have the right to come to my land and bomb my area. The Turks are the enemy. “Mainly, I want this problem to go away, through negotiations … I just want it to be done so everyone can go back to their farms.”
