Turk Official Warns Pkk Destabilising North Iraq

TUNCELI, Turkey, July 19 (Reuters) - Expansion by separatist Turkish Kurds in northern
Iraq could spark renewed fighting in the enclave protected by U.S. air patrols, a senior
Turkish security official said on Thursday. 

The United States has pushed for peace among feuding Kurdish factions in northern Iraq in
order to unite the region against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who has not controlled the
north of his country since just after the 1991 Gulf War. 

The official warned that expansion by rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) into
areas controlled by Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), could
spark new fighting. 

"The PKK has taken over 46 villages in northern Iraq that had been aligned with Talabani's
forces," the official told Reuters. "Fighting between the PKK and PUK could break out at
any time in the region because of this." 

PUK officials in Ankara declined to comment. 

Turkey has said it provides Talabani and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) "technical
assistance" to fight the PKK, which has fought an armed campaign for self rule in Turkey's
southeast. 

Turkish soldiers regularly pursue PKK fighters across the border into northern Iraq. U.S. air
patrols protect the region from Iraqi forces. 

The PKK has largely withdrawn from Turkey to bases in northern Iraq, straining the fragile
balance of power between the PUK and KDP. 

The parties have jointly administered a regional government in the breakaway enclave since
1992, but have not yet fully implemented a U.S.-brokered ceasefire signed in 1998. 

PKK VOW TO REBUILD FORCES 

Meanwhile, the Europe-based Ozgur Politika newspaper, often used by the PKK leadership
to make statements, said on Thursday the guerrillas had begun efforts to rebuild their forces. 

The high council of the PKK's People's Defence Forces (HPG) held talks in northern Iraq
this month, it said on its website. 

"One of the important decisions made (during talks) was to enlarge the HPG to meet the
criteria of a professional and modern
army," it said. 

The PKK's 16-year-long armed struggle for autonomy in Turkey's mainly-Kurdish southeast
has killed more than 30,000
people, but fighting has largely dropped off since rebel commander Abdullah Ocalan was
sentenced to death in 1999. 

"If our leader suffers any kind of physical harm, every HPG member will fight at the highest
level with his entire heart and soul," the council said in a statement. 

Ocalan, the lone inmate on a Turkish island prison, now awaits a European Court of Human
Rights ruling on his death sentence. 

He has called on followers to leave Turkey and instead seek cultural rights through political
means for the country's 12 million Kurds. 

Turkish authorities dismiss Ocalan's peace overture as a ruse to escape the gallows. 
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