Bonni Network

December 15, 1996

Release of 6 to Turkey Opens Door With Rebels

By STEPHEN KINZER/ NY Times

STANBUL, Turkey -- The recently negotiated release of six Turkish soldiers captured by Kurdish rebels appears to reflect at least the beginning of a change in thinking about a conflict that has seemed likely to drag on forever.

Until lately, both the government and the rebels have insisted that their single goal is military victory and that no nonmilitary solution to the conflict is possible.

But in recent months, the rebel leader, Abdullah Ocalan, has been quoted as saying that he would settle for autonomy rather than full independence for Turkey's Kurdish region in the southeast.

He told a French newspaper that he had been contacted by Turkey's new prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, but Erbakan has not acknowledged making any such overture.

Still, the prime minister has said he hopes to ease the terms of emergency rule under which much of the southeast is governed. Last week, the government was reportedly considering some form of amnesty for Kurdish prisoners.

Political and military leaders have resolutely refused to deal with the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the PKK, for any purpose, including negotiating the release of prisoners.

A member of parliament who traveled to PKK strongholds in northern Iraq three months ago to seek the release of prisoners was bitterly denounced and threatened with prosecution when he returned.

The politician, Fethullah Erbas, a member of the governing Welfare Party, was unsuccessful that time. But last week he went back to northern Iraq. This time he was successful, returning with six young men who had been held prisoner for more than a year.

"I have done my duty not in the name of any party, but as a citizen," he said, "and I have done it in spite of criticism from many quarters."

Among those who criticized Erbas was Yasar Okuyan, a leading member of parliament from the opposition Motherland Party.

"No one and no organization in Turkey should make deals with the PKK," Okuyan said. "The PKK is a murderous organization that kills our soldiers, our police officers and even our women and children. I violently object to this."

The government and the press, which covers the conflict according to unwritten rules laid down by the military, portray the PKK as a terrorist organization financed principally by heroin smuggling. Police officials in several West European countries also believe the PKK is heavily involved in drug trafficking; the party denies it.

On Tuesday, an Istanbul daily, Yeni Yuzyil, which says it has obtained secret documents related to the government's use of death squads to fight the rebels, published what it said was a report showing that in 1994, Tansu Ciller, then the prime minister, authorized a payment of more than $2 million to a Turkish gunman for an operation aimed at killing Ocalan, the rebel leader.

Last month the gunman, Abdullah Catli, died along with a senior police official in a car crash that has set off a major scandal here. Mrs. Ciller has not commented on the report.

Government leaders and Turkish journalists routinely refer to PKK combatants as terrorists, and they described the six captured soldiers as hostages, carefully avoiding the use of the word "prisoner."

"They have an underlying reason for this," said the chairman of the Ankara-based Human Rights Association, Akin Birdal, who was part of the delegation that traveled to northern Iraq to arrange the soldiers' release. "If they accepted that the Turkish soldiers were POWs, then they would have to consider people who had fought for the other side as POWs as well, which would force them to act within the boundaries of international law."

A handful of Turkish soldiers captured by the PKK have been released in the past without ceremony. But this week's group release was the first known to have been the result of negotiation.

Last week, the three negotiators met in Ankara and then traveled secretly to the Iraqi city of Dohuk, where the prisoners' relatives had been camped out for weeks hoping for their release. There they met PKK members who brought them and the relatives to a camp near the Iraqi town of Amadiya.

"The camp is established in rocky hills and mighty caves, resembling an eagle's lair," wrote a Turkish journalist who was present, adding: "The beating of hearts seemed noisy enough to move the rocks around, when the commander of the camp told the families to come out of the tents as the soldiers had arrived. Then the soldiers were restored to their families. The scene at the gathering brought a tear to everyone's eyes."

Iraq asks Ankara to clarify stand on Western force 08:32 Dec 15, 1996 EST

BAGHDAD, Dec 15 (Reuter) - Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz criticised Turkey on Sunday for what he described as misleading statements on the future of a Western air force protecting Kurds in northern Iraq.

U.S., British and French planes police a no-fly zone in northern Iraq from bases in southern Turkey to guard Iraqi Kurds against possible attacks by Iraqi armed forces.

The force's mandate expires by the end of the year and Aziz said the latest remarks by Turkish officials that the task of the force would be changed and would be confined to flights over northern Iraq were misleading.

Iraq's state-run newspapers on Sunday carried reports saying Ankara intended to change the force's tasks and restrict them to air surveillance of northern Iraqi skies.

``We ask Turkish officials for an explanation of this issue and whether they will again allow their air bases to be used to violate Iraq's sovereignty and threaten its security by Americans,'' Aziz said.

Aziz said that as long as U.S. and allied planes continued flying over northern Iraq, ``threatening our security and national unity, it means that the Turkish government joins forces with America and its allies and there is no other description for that.''

The force was set up in 1991 after the Gulf War over Kuwait.

On Friday Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan predicted an end to the mandate of the force, but Western diplomats have said it would probably be replaced by a similar operation.

``It has come to the point where Provide Comfort's duties will be ended on December 31,'' Erbakan told reporters.

Turkey and the allies are negotiating minor alterations to the force, including a name change. The operation lost some effectiveness in Kurdish infighting in northern Iraq four months ago when one Kurdish faction got backing from Iraqi troops.

Washington had to scrap Provide Comfort's ground operations in northern Iraq and evacuated staff there, but air patrols have continued.

Turkish MPs complain the air shield has helped create a power vacuum exploited by Turkish Kurd rebels in northern Iraq, who use the area as a staging ground for attacks on southeast Turkey.