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

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RMSTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASLN ÖZETÎ
6
Turki~h Probe February 24, 1994
on the issue. Accordingly, newly recovering from
their own defeat in the war against Iraqi troops and
in need of new allies in the region, KDP leaders at
that time had sent out calls for "unity" to various
groups such as the Turkish-Kurdish KUK and the
"Ozgürlük Volu," but these organizations had failed
to reply.
The KDP's conviction following the May operation
that Ankara was now part of the Iraqi war on that
country's Kurds after the May operation turned Barzani's
attention towards the PKK. Immediately after
the operation, the KDP made a similar appeal to
Ocalan. The PKK leader, who himself had already
been looking for possible alliances which would increase
his outside support, immediately accepted
the invitation to hold a meeting with Masoud Barzani.
Both sides, ending up at the same table, were
more than willing to sign the so-called "Principles of
Solidarity. or rather a unified commitment against
"every kind of imperialism and the struggle against
the plans and plots of imperialism in the region.• The
protocol, signed in July that year, also expressed determination
on behalf of the two organizations to
boost "cooperation with other revolutionary forces in
the region and to effort for the creation of new alliances."
While these issues made up the first five articles
of the 11-article protocol, the sixth article stressed
that the struggle "should depend on the force of the
Kurdish people." Article 10 reportedly ruled that the
organizations would not side with actions which
could damage the unity of the parties and that they
should respect the organizational and political independence
of each other. In other words, they would
not interfere in each others affairs but each would
make sure that their actions did not endanger the
other.
Article 11 of the protocol was what the KDP leadership
would take up nearly five years later and use
against the PKK. According to this, in case of mistakes
that were to be committed in the practicing of
the previous articles, those responsible for any of
the parties involved had to warn the other side, and
if this warning was not taken seriously, the organizations
would as of then act independently..
This alliance, somewhat provoked by Turkey's
cross-border operation, functioned smoothly
throughout the 1983-1985 period, as Barzani, along
with other Kurdish group leaders, provided vast support
for the PKK in northern Iraq. In October 1984,
the two sides even came together publicly in Damascus,
Syria, where they reassessed their support
of the protocol and issued also an Arabic communique
signed on behalf of the two parties.
Re/ations from 1984 to 1987
The pressure of the Turkish government in 1985,
however, forced the KDP leadership to restrict its
contacts with the PKK that year.
The threat of Turkish air raids on party camps in
Iraqi territory, as well as Öcalan's tactics in the fields
which breached Barzani's understanding of the
"Kurdish struggle," finally severed relations altogether
in the year 1987. Turkish officials believe, though,
that through its connections with the KDP, Öcalan
a/so managed to set up better relations with Iran in
that period. These relations, under an agreement
with the KDP, allowed the PKK to set up camps in
Iranian territory especially in the region of Urumiye in
1986.
In 1984, the PKK established its largest camp, the
Lolan camp or the so-called Central Base in the
northeast corner of Iraq, bord~ring Turkey and Iran.
This patch of land included the KDP's and the Iraqi
Communist Party's (ICP) headquarters as well as
the PKK's printing press. That year, the PKK also
launched its first major attack in Turkey which immediately
thrust Ankara into a reactive position.
Baghdad, aware that it could benefit greatly from
this, signed a so-called Security Protocol'with Ankara
on Oct. 15, 1984, allowing forces from either
country to pursue "subversive groups in the territory
of the other" up to a distance of 5 kilometers. Coming
a year after the Turkish assault which had made
the Iraqi Kurds suffer dearly, the protocol served only
to anger the Iraqi Kurds even further.
But, under constant Turkish pressure and the
threat of air raids, the KDP in 1985 asked PKK militants
to abandon KDP camps in the region. Though
it still continued cooperation with the Turkish Kurds,
the KDP leadership preferred to distance them from
their own peshmergas, aware that this could decrease
the damages cased by Turkish air raids.
At that time, this was regarded as a major victory
for Turkey and sparked off some occasional fighting
between the PKK and KDP. Unbeknownst to officials
in Ankara -. who still lacked a longer term understanding
of the problem -- though, it was also a development
which would allow the PKK to set up its
own camps in Iraq, to liberate itself from what remained
in form of KDP control and to strengthen its
own organizational structure. For the second time in
a matter of 1.5 years, Ankar;'s "cross-border" victories
had backfired in the long-term and had notably
served the separatists' interests. In the years to
come, up until the beginning of 1992, Turkish operations
into northern Iraq would continue, but serve only
to alienate the Iraqi Kurds even further and insure
that even at lower levels, Kurdish cooperation with
the PKK continued.
On Aug. 15, 1986, Turkey launched a massive air
operation on alleged PKK targets in northern Iraq,
bombing what Ankara said were the Kishan, Hayat
and Haftanm separatist camps. The attack was in
response to another PKK ambush on Aug. 12, 1986,
in which 12 gendarmes were killed near Uludere.
Though branded a success by Turkish officials,
among the 200 dead were Iraqi Kurdish civilians as
well as KDP members. A day later, Baghdad would
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