ISTANBUL, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Iraqi troops have withdrawn from positions they took in the
Western-patrolled Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq, an Iraqi Kurdish faction told Reuters on
Tuesday.

An Ankara-based spokesman for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which controls an
area bordering Turkey in the enclave, said two Iraqi battalions had left positions they took
near the town of Ba'idrah, some 60 km (40 miles) south of Dohuk.

"We haven't seen any other troop movements," he said. "We are expecting things to return to
normal."

A party official in London told Reuters Baghdad had negotiated for and secured the release
of some 150 Iraqi troops the KDP had taken hostage during their approach to the town,
which began on Saturday.

"An Iraqi unit of about 150 soldiers was sent to the north of the town, apparently to cut the
road to Dohuk and set up checkpoints. They were surrounded and surrendered. At the
request of the Iraqi government they were handed back on Sunday," he said.

The Iraqi embassy in Ankara said it could neither confirm nor deny the report.

Turkey sharply curtails the movement of journalists in and out of northern Iraq, where it
maintains a military presence and conducts offensives against the separatist Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK), making independent verification difficult.

The KDP and a rival Iraqi Kurdish faction, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) wrested
much of northern Iraq from Baghdad's control after the 1991 Gulf war that followed its
invasion of Kuwait.

U.S. and British planes based in Turkey maintain a no-fly zone over the region, which
Washington has attempted to unite in opposition to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Squabbling between the two factions over customs revenue and proceeds from a lucrative
sanctions-busting trade in Iraqi diesel that the KDP controls from its territory has hamstrung
the provincial government established after the Gulf War.

Fighting between the factions, which has killed several thousand people since the end of the
war, culminated in 1996, when Iraqi-backed KDP fighters overran PUK positions,
prompting U.S. missile strikes on military targets in southern Iraq.

A 1998 U.S.-brokered peace deal between the factions followed, but there has been little
movement toward the power-sharing and elections it envisioned.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com

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