Iraqi Kurd groups commit to consolidating truce 13:20 Nov 15, 1996 EST

ANKARA, Nov 15 (Reuter) - Rival Iraqi Kurdish groups committed themselves to consolidating a three-week-old ceasefire on Friday at a second round of U.S.-brokered peace talks in Ankara, diplomats said.

Representatives of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) agreed a ceasefire late in October after nearly two months of fighting.

``All the participants confirmed their commitment to strengthening and making permanent the ceasefire between the PUK and the KDP,'' U.S. mediator Robert Pelletreau told journalists after the talks, which also included representatives of a Turcoman group from northern Iraq.

He said discussions on demarcating a ceasefire line and deploying a peace monitoring force were put off until further talks, dates for which would be announced in the near future.

Friday's Talks did not extend to the major issues of dispute between the two main parties: oil trade revenues on the Turkish border and the status of the main administrative city of Arbil.

Pelletreau said the United States was providing $11 million in relief assistance for U.N. agencies in northern Iraq.

``With the coming winter the need for immediate assistance has become urgent,'' he told journalists. Relief agency work in the Kurdish region was virtually brought to a halt by the fighting in which dozens of people were killed.

In Geneva, the U.N. refugee agency urged Iran to relocate 65,000 Iraqi Kurdish refugees from the recent fighting stranded in icy mountains in an inaccessible border area with no access to international relief where children were dying of cold.

``We will do our best to cooperate in taking the necessary measures to make sure the ceasefire holds,'' the head of the KDP delegation, Mohamed Salih Cuma, said on Friday.

A PUK delegate said his faction was still committed to a statement agreed at the last round of peace talsk.

Pelletreau negotiated the initial ceasefire between the KDP and the PUK after fighting which gave President Saddam Hussein a foothold in northern Iraq after a five-year break.

Clashes began after Iraqi armoured divisions joined forces with Massoud Barzani's KDP in late August to capture the regional capital Arbil from Jalal Talabani's PUK, prompting U.S. missile strikes against targets in southern Iraq.

Disputes over the status of Arbil and oil trade revenues effectively killed a Kurdish attempt at parliamentary self-rule in northern Iraq after Western-sponsored elections in the region in 1992. The West encouraged the Kurds to break from Baghdad after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War.

Ahead of the talks, Pelletreau also referred to ``bringing terrorism under control'' in northern Iraq, but did not expand on the comment. Turkish officials say the power vacuum in the region enables Kurdish rebels seeking self-rule in Turkey to launch cross-border attacks.

Turkish security officials on Friday said troops had killed 62 Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) during two days of clashes on Turkey's border with northern Iraq.

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Prosecutors demand life in Kurdish killings trial 11:22 Nov 15, 1996 EST

BERLIN, Nov 15 (Reuter) - German prosecutors demanded life sentences on Friday for the two main defendants on trial for the murder of four Kurdish dissidents which justice authorities said was ordered by Iran.

Federal prosecutor Bruno Jost said Iranian Kazem Darabi, 37, and Abbas Rhayel, 29, from Lebanon should be found guilty on four counts of murder and one of attempted murder. He described the assassinations as ``cold and cynical.''

He also demanded 11 years for Lebanese Youssef Amin accused of standing on watch while the dissidents were gunned down in the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin in 1992.

``There is not the slightest doubt that the attack was decided, planned and prepared by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its leaders,'' Jost told the court.

``The brazen attempts by the Tehran government to influence the proceedings point to this having happened on Iran's orders,'' he said.

Jost said the trial had succeeded in ``opening the door a bit to the headquarters of Iranian state terrorism and casting a look at the killing machine.''

Iran protested to Germany on Thursday against earlier prosecution charges about its role, saying its judiciary had ``under the influence of the Zionists ...embarked on an evil political game against the Islamic Republic of Iran.''

Iran has denied all involvement in the killings.

In his summing up at the end of a three-year trial, Jost repeatedly accused Tehran of ordering the murders. In response, Iran called in Germany's ambassador in Tehran and one Iranian newspaper called for Iran to break all ties with Bonn.

The prosecution told the court earlier this week that an Iranian special state committee, which allegedly included supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, had ordered the assassinations.

A Berlin state court has spent almost three years hearing evidence against the five men charged with shooting dead three exiled Iranian Kurdish leaders and their translator.

The murder of the General Secretary of the Kurdish Democratic Party in Iran (PDKI) Sadegh Charafkandi, and three of his escorts, was a reprehensible act, Jost said. The victims were defenceless against an accurate hail of fire.

``It doesn't get any more treacherous than this,'' Jost said.

He said Darabi was the ringmaster and Rhayel pulled the trigger. He demanded five-year sentences for two other Lebanese defendants, Mohammed Atris and Atallah Ayad.

The Iranian newspaper Kayhan called on Tehran to break ties with Bonn, its biggest trade partner, and suggested that Moslems would take unspecified actions against Germany.

``After this affront to the sanctity of the Moslem nation of Iran, it is the duty of the honourable government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to expell Germany's ambassador without hesitation and to cut all trade, economic and political ties with this government,'' the hardline daily said.