Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RNISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETi
Syria may use Armenian card
PKK
Turkish Daily New.,
AN KARA- Recent speculation that, under piete embargo on Armenia. an~J1l!i' no .iipln- on
pressure from Damascus. the .outlaw~d Kurdi- matic ties with the country. Turkish contacts
stan Workers' Party (PKK) IS geanng up to with Armenia only take place on a multilateral
move its headquarters from Syna to Armenia, level and are limited to such things as the
is suspected in Turkey of being disinfonnation Black Sea J;conomic Cooperation scheme,
to ease Turkey's own pressure on that country CSCE and the North Atlantic Cooperation
to deal with the terrorists.
Council.
Unconfirmed reeorts, coming from Middle With Syria, however, Turkey has strong bi-
East sources, have It that PKK leader Abdullah lateralties and there is considerable U.S. pres-
Öcalan has felt the Syrian grip on his organiza- sure on that country as well. Official sources in
tion tightening up and is now seeking a better . Ankara suspect that the message given via
base for the movement. speculation on the PKK leadership's intention
Through his own contacts wit.h Arm~nians i.n to move is that if Syria is further pressurized,
Syria and Lebanon, sources claimed, Ocalan IS !uïkey may lose any indirect control it has on
currently making arrangements. to' base the this organization ..
Rt\K in l':\O."(k,h areas of Armel1la where the In other words, the message could be that if
organizatIOn' has Increasing mass support. Turkish pressure goes too far and the Syrian's
Observers here suspect that such reports aim get more disturbed over Ankara's tightening
at putting Turkey's policy with regard to Syria grip, it could send the PKK off to a country
off track and forcing it to case its pressure on where it will flourish freely. If the PKK is
the PKK. based in Armenia, it would be literally impossi-
Recently, Turkish officials signed a security -hie to preYl~nt ils organizational acprotocol
with the Syrians, accepting the ex- . .. h . I 1 I k f d' I
change of terrorists and the extradition of.draft tmtles t ere wit l t le ac' 0 Ip 0- .
malic contact.
dodgers. A majority of PKK militants are Meanwhile. security sources on
known to be draft evaders. S):ria also f.ua~an- Tuesday denied a report which apteed
it would not allow terronst orgal1lzatlons peared as a banner story in the
to use its territories. Turkey observes a com- Turkish daily Hürriyet and said
there had been no contact between
the National Intelligence Organization
(MIT) and the Syrian secret
service, Mohabarat.
Hürriyet claimed in its report thaI
two MIT officers had secretly travelled
to Damascus last week and
were taken to the house where PKK
leader Ahdullah Öca13n liled The
~epQrt said the agents.,saw sOllleon~
In the garden \\ho looked lIke.
.Öcalan but could not be sure. It also
noted that it was not clear whether
the PKK leader was under custody
or only protected very closely. The
Syrians reportedly claimed he was
detained. An intelligence source,
\\'ho asked not to be Identified, told
the Turkish Daily News that no one
from MIT had visited Svria recently
for the said pUl-pose. He said "the
scenario" descnbed in the paper
was not possible "since such relations
do not exist between our service
and theirs."
Turkey and Iran sign accord for
expanding their economic ties
. Turkish Daily News
AN KARA- Iranian First Vice President
Hassan Habibi's official visit to Turkey as
the guest of Prime Minister Tansu Çlller
ended on a high note on Wednesday with
the sides signing
standing covering
a memorandum of under-
a broad range of subjects
in the field of economic cooperation.
According to the accord Turkey will buy
up to four million tons of crude oil from Iran
in 1994.
. The political will to cooperate a~~inst terrorism,
a key agenda item of the nigh level
talks in Ankara between Turkey and Iran,
was also reemphasized by the sides just
prior to Habibi's departure for his country.
Addressing a joint press conference with
Habibi at Ankara's Esenboga airport, Prime
Minister Tansu Çiller told reporters that they
had arrived at an important understanding
with the Iranian First Vice President concerning
the subject of securing the border
between the two countries.
Underlining the contribution this would
make to the fight against terrorism, Çiller
expressed her "deep satisfaction" at this outcome
and s.aid she expected positive results
126
to come out of this withina shortspace of
time.
Under an accord between the two countries,
announced earlier, Iran's security forces
will prevent, separatist militants from the
outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
from operating against'Turkey on ils territory.
Turkey will also he able to observe any.
~ecurity operations against the rebels although
it will not participate
. operations:
actively in these
Emphasizing that an important portion of
her talks with Habibi had concentrated on economic
cooperation issues Çiller said that the
ministers and technicians from both sides
had worked very hard over the past two days
to draw the outhnes of this cooperation.
She said that according to the memorandum
of understanding signed at the airport
before Habibi's departure agreementhad
been reached for Turkey to purchase three to
.four million tons of crude oil over thenext
year.
Çiller added that the details of this purchase.
would be worked out by offici~!s from
the Turkish petroleum comp~ny TUPRA~
and the Iranian
ny.
National Petroleum Compa-
She said that these negotiations weuld also
brin~ to the agenda the possibility of bartering
1urkish goods in return for the oil to be
purchased from Iran. .
According to information provided by
Ciller at the joint press conference some of
the items incorporated in the memorandum
of understanding are as follows: .
• The purchase by Turkey of mûre crude
oil.than planned from Iran at world prices in
return for exports to Iran. .
• The transportation of Iranian natural gas
to Turkey by means of a pipeline and by
tankers as liquefied natural gas. A working
group will be set up to study this issue.
Agreement has also been reached for the
Turkish pipeline company BOTA~ to partici-'
pate in talks aimed at working out means of'
transporting Iranian oil by means of pipeline
to Europe.
• The increase of the volume of border.
trade between the two countries to the level
of $50 million.
• Unqindered access for the two countries