PKK retreats into Iran to avoid attack by Turkish army

Zaman
Posted: 2007-11-05 20:48:12

Members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) based in northern Iraq have been leaving the region for Iran to avoid an attack by the Turkish army, a former PKK leader has said.
"The PKK has decreased its forces in Iraqi Kurdistan and they are moving to Iran. It is part of PKK tactics that when they feel pressure in one country, they move to another," Osman Öcalan, brother of the now-jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, told UK daily The Independent.

"The news that the PKK is moving its mobile fighters into Iranian Kurdistan -- where they have escalated attacks on Iranian government forces -- further complicates any action against the guerrillas," the daily noted in the article filed from Arbil and published on Monday.  Osman Öcalan had left the PKK in 2004 because he had fallen in love with a woman who was a fellow PKK member, the daily noted. He is still sought by Turkey on an Interpol red notice around the world.

The total strength of the PKK -- which is listed as a terrorist organization by a large majority of the international community -- is at just 7,000, according to Osman Öcalan, with whom The Independent correspondent held an interview in Arbil, the capital of the regional Iraqi Kurdish government.

"There are 2,750 fighters in Turkey. A further 2,500 are in the border areas of Iraq and 1,500 are in Iran," he said, adding that in the last six months the PKK has started "a war" against Iran.

Iraq is under mounting pressure from Turkey to take action against the PKK, which has a few thousand members in remote bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. "There are more and more fighters in Iranian Kurdistan and the Iranian Kurds support the PKK strongly," he said.

PKK's Iranian offshoot, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), has been behind a string of deadly attacks on security forces in northwestern Iran in recent months. Iran has robust relations with Turkey but has also built an increasingly strong relationship with the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad after the fall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003. In September, Iran's military confirmed that Tehran has been shelling militant bases in northern Iraq to prevent separatists from creeping over the border into Iran and carrying out attacks.

"The shift of part of the PKK into Iran to evade a Turkish military operation and to attack Iranian forces faces the US with a problem. America condemns the PKK when it is killing Turkish soldiers in Turkey as 'terrorists,' but has not similarly denounced the section of the PKK, known as PJAK, which has killed as many as 150 Iranian soldiers and police in Iran. Iran claims that the PKK receives covert support from the US," The Independent highlighted.