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Kurds Nix Some Peace Pledges

Friday, November 1, 1996 6:18 pm EST

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- A Kurdish group retreated Friday from some of the pledges it made in a comprehensive peace agreement signed a day earlier.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party issued a statement backing off from promises to re-establish a regional government in northern Iraq. The party said it had to discuss the matter first.

The agreement between the KDP and its Iranian-backed rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, also included promises to maintain a U.S.-mediated cease-fire and exchange captives. Iraqi paper urges Kurds to reject U.S. aid 06:13 Nov 01, 1996

BAGHDAD, Nov 1 (Reuter) - An Iraqi government newspaper urged the Kurdish minority in the country's north to reject a U.S. offer of $7.3 million in aid and fight against American interests in their region.

``The national and religious duty deems it necessary (for Kurds) to launch holy war like that of the leader Salahudin al- Aiyoubi (famous Moslem Kurdish fighter) in order to reject the American-Zionist charities,'' the official al-Iraq newspaper said on Friday.

The paper called on Kurds ``to work earnestly and sincerely to dismiss and hit at any American thing and that represents the Americans in Iraq's Kurdistan.''

The U.S. donation, announced on Wednesday, came only one day before two rival Kurdish factions agreed to extend a U.S.-brokered ceasefire that ended two months of clashes in northern Iraq.

The U.S. brokered the ceasefire between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Massoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Jalal Talabani last week.

``The money is allocated in order that talks between the groups of Barzani and Talabani will succeed,'' the paper said.

Al-Iraq blamed the United States for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in northern Iraq. ``The Kurds deserve charities after the American Administration has caused them all this state of fear and starvation.

``America...wants to convert Iraq's Kurdistan to another Afghanistan,'' it said.

The Kurdish region has been out of Baghdad's control since 1991. The fighting between the two faction drew in Baghdad's forces in August, prompting a U.S. missile attack on Iraq. Turkey's Erbakan promises peace in southeast 08:38 Nov 01, 1996

YALIM, Turkey, Nov 1 (Reuter) - Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan on Friday promised peace in the mainly-Kurdish southeast of Turkey, ravaged for 12 years by clashes between separatist guerrillas and the security forces.

``Terror is finishing in the southeast. Our innocent children will no longer be massacred,'' he told a crowd of supporters in Yalim, a small town in the southeastern province of Mardin.

The influential National Security Council on Thursday recommended lifting a state of emergency in Mardin, citing a drop in Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) attacks.

``In this way, our people in the southeastern region will get freedom step by step,'' Erbakan said. ``They will live in peace.''

He was speaking to a crowd of around 350 followers of his Welfare Party ahead of mayoral elections in the town on Sunday. Around 150 policemen were in the crowd.

Islamist Erbakan has said he will end the fighting in the spirit of ``Moslem brotherhood'' but a tentative peace bid by one of his MPs has faded away under pressure from the military and hardliners in parliament.

Like his predecessors, Erbakan refuses to negotiate with the rebels. More than 21,000 people have died in the conflict.

Emergency rule, which gives government-appointed authorities wide powers including exiling people from the region, will stay in force in another nine provinces.

Police on Friday caught seven rebel Kurds allegedly behind one of three recent PKK suicide bombings, the state-run Anatolian news agency said.

The police said the suspects had organised the attack on a crack police force headquarters that killed five people in the southern town of Adana last week

November 1, 1996

Kurdish Factions Extend Cease-Fire in Iraq; U.S. Still Cautious

By STEVEN ERLANGER

ASHINGTON -- Two Kurdish factions whose rivalry led the United States to fire missiles against Iraq last month agreed on Thursday to extend their cease-fire and to resume talks in mid-November on a more permanent political settlement.

Meeting for two days under American, British, and Turkish auspices in Ankara, Turkey, the two factions issued a declaration promising to "maintain and strengthen the cease-fire with a view to making it permanent," while working to reconstruct a regional Kurdish authority intended to bring stability to northern Iraq.

Most important, said the American chairman of the talks, Robert H. Pelletreau Jr., the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, the two sides "agreed that they shall not seek the intervention of any other forces, which could aggravate the conflict or raise tensions."

They also agreed to set up monitors to draw a cease-fire line and to report violations to American, British, and Turkish officials in Ankara.

American officials in Washington urged caution, however, saying the factions were far from a real peace agreement.

"For the Kurds to keep talking and maintain the cease-fire is, for us, useful and successful," said the State Department spokesman, Nicholas Burns. But he added: "I don't want to oversell this. They're still adversaries, still dangerous, and need to be watched."

The clashes began in late August when the Kurdish Democratic Party, led by Massoud Barzani, sought the help of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq to roll back the advances of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which Barzani claimed had received military help from Iran.

The Iraqi military moved in on northern Iraq, which has been designated a no-flight zone for the Iraqis since the Persian Gulf war. The Iraqis helped militiamen from the Democratic Party take the city of Irbil from the Patriotic Union. In retaliation, the Clinton administration, which had failed in earlier efforts to tamp down Kurdish infighting, ordered missile strikes in early September against military targets in southern Iraq.

The United States, with the support of Britain and the vociferous dissent of France, extended a second no-flight zone, in the south, north to the suburbs of Baghdad in an effort to punish Saddam.

The conflict also led the United Nations to delay an agreement signed in May that would allow Iraq to sell $2 billion of oil every six months in order to buy food and relief supplies.

The arrangement would also benefit Turkey, which has lost considerable money because of the U.N. boycott of Iraqi oil, much of which used to pass through pipelines in Turkey.

While the agreement on Thursday may ease security concerns, it will not move the oil deal forward because there are two unresolved issues: setting the price of the oil, and establishing guidelines for the freedom of movement of U.N. monitors.

"Saddam's people are blocking the U.N.'s effort to establish a rigid monitoring regime to insure that the proceeds from the oil go to starving people and not to Saddam and his relatives," Burns said.

In response to criticism that Washington is not responsive to the distress of ordinary Iraqis, the United States announced on Wednesday a contribution of $7.3 million in emergency food aid through the U.N. World Food Program, as long as the money helps Kurds in the north.

Washington coupled the announcement with a repetition of criticism of Saddam for spending millions on palaces and his army instead of on the needs of Iraqis.

U.S. Accused of Betraying Kurds Linked to Charities in Northern Iraq

By William Branigin Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, November 1 1996; Page A26 The Washington Post

Refugee organizations and private charities yesterday accused the Clinton administration of betraying thousands of Kurds associated with U.S.-funded relief efforts in northern Iraq after the State Department said there are no plans to evacuate them and that they are in no imminent danger.

"What we are seeing is pretty much a betrayal of the promises that were made as part of Operation Provide Comfort," said Bill Frelick, a senior policy analyst at the Washington-based U.S. Committee for Refugees. He referred to the U.S. military operation after the Persian Gulf War in 1991 to deliver relief to the Kurdish population of northern Iraq and establish a safe haven there to protect them from the forces of Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein.

Asked about reports from refugee and relief officials that 4,000 to 5,000 Kurds associated with the relief effort were in increasing danger, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said yesterday, "We don't believe there's any evidence to support that claim." He said the Kurds "did not work directly for the United States government," but for American and European nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). "We have not made a decision to take them out," Burns said. "This situation is still under review, and I think will remain under review for some time."

In September, the United States evacuated 2,133 Kurdish employees of the U.S. government and their families after Iraqi forces intervened in the safe haven to help one Kurdish guerrilla faction in its battle with a rival faction backed by Iran. Two weeks ago, a then-secret operation extracted more than 600 Iraqi members of an anti-Saddam organization set up by the CIA. Both groups were flown to Guam, where they are being processed for resettlement in the United States.

Refugee and relief officials said the Kurdish employees left behind worked for American, not European, NGOs, many funded by the U.S. government. Now, these officials say, the stranded Kurds are being hunted down by Iraqi agents, who have invaded the charities' offices and seized personnel files, computer records and other data. The officials said some of the Kurds have been beaten or shot, and all are living in fear for their lives.

"They were the public face of the U.S. aid effort," Frelick said. "The Iraqi government is hardly making fine distinctions between who was directly hired by the U.S. government and who was hired by charitable organizations working under contract" to U.S. aid agencies.

"Saddam's secret police are definitely targeting these people," said Roger Rosenblatt, president of Refugees International, a private advocacy group. To claim they face no danger is "callous and irresponsible," he said.

Robert Anderson, who heads the Atlanta-based charity Concern for Kids and lived in northern Iraq until September, said the scope of the problem is "staggering," but that the administration "is trying to cover it up until after the election."

He said one of the charity's drivers was stopped by three armed Iraqis in the town of Dohuk on Oct. 13 and forced to drive to a remote area where he was beaten, stabbed and doused with gasoline. The gunmen then torched the vehicle and left, but the driver managed to get out and was taken to a hospital, Anderson said. In a Kafkaesque twist, he said, the employee was arrested in the hospital, an official report ruled the incident a suicide attempt, and the governor of Dohuk ordered the charity's staff not to discuss it.

Four days later, Frelick said, a driver for the International Catholic Migration Commission was shot in the head in Sulaymaniyah by members of one of the Kurdish factions. He survived the attack and was hospitalized.

At the State Department, Burns said northern Iraq "is relatively peaceful right now" because of a U.S.-brokered cease-fire and negotiations in Turkey between the two Kurdish factions.

The factions, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, signed a peace accord yesterday, vowing to maintain a cease-fire and stabilize northern Iraq by rebuilding a regional government. They pledged not to break away from Iraq or seek help from outside powers, a reference to the Iranian and Iraqi governments.