BRIEFS

KURDISH POLITICAL LEADER CLAIMS PLAN TO DISSOLVE THE PKK IS FINALIZED

Bayram Bozyel, the General Chairman of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Hak-Par (Rights and Freedom Party) has disclosed a plan he claims will soon be implemented to dissolve the Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan – PKK) and end the longstanding conflict between Turkey’s military and the Iraqi-based Kurdish militants (Haber Turk, July 6; Sabah, July 11). Hak-Par seeks greater Kurdish autonomy within a Turkish federal system.

According to Bozyel, who made the revelations following meetings with leading members of northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the four-part plan was drawn up by Turkey, Iraq and the United States and has the full approval of the KRG. The plan calls for the following:

• Northern Iraq’s Mahmur camp near the Turkish border housing some 10,000 Kurdish refugees since the early 1990s will be closed and the refugees returned to Turkey. U.S. officials have sought the closure of the camp for several years.

• PKK cadres based on Qandil Mountain will be moved to the newly vacant Mahmur camp where they will be disarmed.

• Leading members of the PKK will be given Iraqi passports and allowed to move to certain European countries, primarily Norway. Active contacts with the European Union regarding the plan are continuing.

• Turkey will prepare a “solution package” that will include an amnesty for deactivated PKK fighters.

According to Bozyel, the principal political leaders in Kurdish northern Iraq, Iraqi president Jalal al-Talabani and KRG president Massoud Barzani “have also assumed significant roles in this process. They are disturbed by the PKK; they see it as a serious instability factor in the region. They are in favor of speeding up the activities regarding the disarmament of the PKK.” Bozyel even claims “high ranking cadres” of the PKK “are in favor of this plan” (Taraf, July 2; July 4, Argun.org).

Turkish Chief of the General Staff, General Ilker Basbug, was recently asked if the PKK was at the point of being dissolved. He replied, “It would be an overstatement to say that. But, it was delivered very severe blows recently. International support for that organization has diminished. They realized that northern Iraq is no longer a safe haven for them and that they could not achieve anything by using weapons. But, it would be wrong to say that it has been finished off. We can, however, say that we have reached an unprecedented point. We are, therefore, at a critical juncture” (Hurriyet, June 4).

TALIBAN SPOKESMAN WARNS HAMID KARZAI MUST EXPECT SAME FATE AS NAJIBULLAH
 
In a recent interview with the Global Islamic Media Front’s Sada al-Jihad magazine, Taliban spokesman Qari Muhammad Yusuf warned Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, that as a “U.S. agent” he could expect the same fate as former collaborationists such as the pro-British Shah Shuja (assassinated in 1842) and the pro-Soviet President Muhammad Najibullah (tortured, castrated and hanged in public in 1996) (hanein.info, July 15).
 
Yusuf addressed what the Taliban describe as an attempt to shift the Iraqi experience with the pro-government “Awakening Councils” to Afghanistan through the creation of the Afghan Public Protection Force (“the Guardians”) (see Terrorism Monitor, July 9). According to Yusuf, recruitment efforts have been opposed by local shaykhs. “The situation in Afghanistan is different from the conditions in Iraq. This is why the American attempts to set up tribal 'Awakening Councils' are doomed for failure in Afghanistan… What causes security issues for us are the foreigners who bombard innocent civilians, and kill and imprison them without guilt. This is how the attempt to establish 'Awakening Councils' has failed completely in all the Afghan provinces.”
 
The Taliban’s senior spokesman was vague about the role played by the movement’s Pakistan counterparts in destroying NATO supply transports passing through the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), declining to respond to a question regarding the ties between the two groups and the role the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) play in the Islamic Emirate’s larger strategy. “The Americans and their allies from the NATO forces are not enemies of the Taliban alone, they are enemies of the entire Muslim nation. Every Muslim thus considers it is his religious duty to do whatever he can against this aggressor Crusader enemy. As for the relation between the Islamic Emirate and the Pakistan Taliban, it is a relation of religion, creed, and brotherhood.”
 
Similarly, Yusuf offered only a vague endorsement of al-Qaeda fighters still active in Afghanistan, referring to them as “the immigrant mujahideen”. “They are our brothers in religion and creed. They are carrying out jihad in the cause of God against the Crusader forces in Afghanistan.”
 
Yusuf also condemned President Barack Obama’s attempts at outreach with the Muslim world, embodied most notably in recent speeches delivered in Ankara and Cairo (see Terrorism Monitor, June 12). “The American's stance towards the Muslim world is very clear. It is an aggressive and a hostile stance. The Americans proved their hatred towards the Muslim world by occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, and by supporting and aiding the Zionist entity in Palestine. So how is it possible for Obama, by delivering a short speech to a group of people in Cairo or Turkey, to conceal this clear approach and all the brutalities which were committed by the US forces during the past eight years?”