The Turk-Kurd battle:
"Turkey Sends More Troops to Iraq Border; Turkey Sends More Troops to Iraq Border As Kurdish Rebels Say 8 Missing Soldiers Held Captive" by Volkan Sarisakal and Christopher Torchia/Associated Press October 23, 2007
SIRNAK, Turkey-- Dozens of Turkish military vehicles streamed toward the Iraqi border with heavy artillery and ammunition Monday after Kurdish guerrillas killed a dozen soldiers and claimed to have captured eight in an intensifying crisis threatening to spill into Iraq.
An AP Television News cameraman saw a convoy of 50 Turkish army vehicles, loaded with soldiers and weapons, including 155-mm howitzers, heading from the southeastern town of Sirnak toward Uludere, closer to the border.
Trucks towing artillery pieces covered with camouflage tarpaulins were trailed by khaki-colored trucks that appeared to be loaded with ammunition. Armored personnel carriers with helmeted Turkish soldiers manning heavy machine guns escorted the trucks.
At least five U.S.-made transport helicopters ferrying soldiers and Cobra helicopter gunships also were seen flying toward the frontier.
The Pentagon has said 60,000 Turkish soldiers have deployed along the border. After weeks of stepped-up clashes between Turkish troops and rebels, tensions racheted even higher after a guerrilla ambush Sunday killed 12 soldiers and left eight missing. The army said 34 rebels died in a counterattack.
[Remember that paragraph, you'll see it verbatim later!
Reprinting the same shit in different articles?
Why am I having to pay for this garbage?]
The rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party said its fighters captured the missing soldiers a claim that would make it the largest seizure since 1995, when guerrillas grabbed eight soldiers, took them to northern Iraq and held them for two years before letting them go.
Bahoz Erdal, a senior PKK commander, was quoted as telling the pro-Kurdish Firat News Agency in Belgium:
"Right now, these soldiers are hostages in the hands of our forces. Their health condition is good. One of them was slightly injured, but was being taken care of by our medics."
Protesters waving the red and white Turkish flag demonstrated in cities nationwide to demand a tough response to the weekend ambush.
[O.K., that's the second time I've seen "ambush!"
That's a term that the western media and cultural guardians use!
It denotes an "official enemy."
Learn from history, reader.
Native Americans "ambushed" and "massacred," while the western invaders just wanted to "expand" and "clear" the land -- as if it wre "undiscovered" and NO ONE WAS LIVING THERE!
Soon enough, there were not!
To the tune of what, 7-10 MILLION wiped out!
Ah, AMERIKA'S RACIST ROOTS!!!
But WE'RE GREAT!
Looks like we have had a lot of experience wiping out dark-skinned folk!]
Demonstrators shouted in Ankara, the capital: "Martyrs never die! The nation will never be divided!"
"Martyr" is a term used by Turks for soldiers killed in combat.
[WTF?! So the Turks are TERRORISTS NOW!!!
Only "suiciders" are "martyrs," so WHAT does that make the Turks?!
MSM is TURNING them into an ENEMY right in front of your eyes, readers!
Turks, Kurds, ALL of 'EM!!!
Nice Zionist-controlled press we got in Amurka, huh?
And CUI BONO, anyway?]
Others chanted "Down with the PKK and USA!"
[Those are OUR FRIENDS, the Turks?
Maybe we ought to quit calling the P.K.K. terrrorists.
Oh, that's right, we are using them against Iran!!
"In Iraq, Conflict on a Second Kurdish Front"
Oh, sorry, readers, my bad! Those are the P.J.A.K.
Where they trained by Mossad?
And, hey, what are the Mosad agents gonna do up there?
They might get killed!]
Iraqi Kurds allied with Turkish forces in the 1990s to fight the PKK, a rival in their northern enclave at a time when Saddam Hussein ruled the rest of Iraq. But Iraqi Kurds are now reluctant to attack their ethnic brethren from Turkey, fearing the Turks want to curb Kurdish aspirations for self-rule.
Turkey has rejected truces declared by the PKK, demanding that the rebels surrender or be killed. The rebels have pressed ahead with attacks on the grounds they are defending themselves against the army.
Steven Cook, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted previous Turkish incursions into northern Iraq had not destroyed the PKK, which has waged an insurgency in Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey that has killed some 30,000 people since 1984."
[Yeah, MOSTLY KURDS MURDERED by TURKEY!
But you NEVER HEAR about THAT, just Saddam's crimes!]
"US pressures Turkey to avoid an incursion into Iraq; The White House is fearful region could get worse" by Matthew Lee/Associated Press October 23, 2007
WASHINGTON - The United States has opened a "diplomatic full court press" to keep Turkey from invading northern Iraq, an incursion that could further destabilize Iraq and the region.
[And invading Iraq really helped out, too, didn't it, you fucking incompetent and evil mass-murdering shits!?]
President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and other US officials implored Turkish and Iraqi leaders to work together to counter the threat from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), US officials said yesterday as Turkish troops headed toward the border and tensions soared.
Bush spoke by phone with President Abdullah Gul of Turkey and by secure videoconference to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq to urge the two governments to work together to deal with the group after a weekend ambush by rebel Kurds killed 12 Turkish soldiers and left eight missing, the White House said.
Spokesman Gordon Johndroe: "[Bush] expressed his deep concern [to Gul] about the recent attacks by PKK terrorists against Turkish soldiers and civilians. The president reaffirmed our commitment to work with Turkey and Iraq to combat PKK terrorists operating out of northern Iraq [and] told President Gul that the United States will continue to urge the Iraqis to take action against the PKK.
[Bush and Maliki] agreed to work together, in cooperation with the Turkish government, to prevent the PKK from using any part of Iraqi territory to plan or carry out terrorist attacks. The prime minister agreed with President Bush that Turkey should have no doubt about our mutual commitment to end all terrorist activity from Iraqi soil."
[Unless they go after Iran, then we won't care!
Hell, we'll HELP 'EM!!!]]
The US designates the PKK as a terrorist organization.
["Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." -- George W. Bush, September 20, 2001
So the U.S. is a terrorist protector, huh?]
Rice told reporters last night: "I don't want to speculate about specifically what we might do, but this is an issue of deep concern to the United States."
[What can you do? Our troops can't even control Baghdad.]
The Pentagon has said 60,000 Turkish soldiers have deployed along the border. After weeks of stepped-up clashes between Turkish troops and rebels, tensions rose even higher after the guerrilla ambush Sunday. The Turkish Army said 34 rebels died in a counterattack.
[I recognize that paragraph verbatim (see above)]
In addition to Bush's conversations, Rice called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the leader of Iraq's Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, on Sunday to press the US case for restraint from Turkey and action from Iraq against the Kurdish militants, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Rice told Erdogan that "we do not believe unilateral cross-border operations are the best way to address this issue," according to McCormack.
[Yeah, ONLY WE GET TO DO THAT, Turk turds!]
Rice told Barzani that Iraqi authorities needed to take action against the PKK either on their own or with the Turks, McCormack said, a sentiment echoed in a joint statement issued by Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in Washington.
Rice and Miliband, adding that they had proposed a three-way meeting between the United States, Iraq, and Turkey at a Nov. 2-3 meeting in Istanbul:
"We continue to believe that cooperation and coordination between Turkey and Iraq is the most effective means to eliminate the PKK threat."
[Gee, this must be SERIOUS because of all the important players!
Although I'm still trying to square it with the fact that Israel wants the Turks to invade for a Clean Break!
That's why the Kurds are getting the "terrorist" treatment, isn't it, readers?]
As Rice spoke to Erdogan and Barzani Sunday, the US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, was making similar points in Baghdad with President Jalal Talabani of Iraq - a Kurd - who ordered the PKK to lay down their arms or leave Iraq, and Maliki, a Shi'ite.
[Wow! Really WORKIN' IT, huh?]
McCormack: "From our perspective this is a diplomatic full-court press. We want to see an outcome where you have the Turks and the Iraqis working together and we will do what we can to resolve the issue without a Turkish cross-border incursion."
[I'm tired of the fucking sports terminology!
The "news' is NOT a GAME!!!
Sports don't belong in "news!"]
"Kurdish Rebels Ask for Cease-Fire and Talks With Turkey, Which Continues Shelling" by SABRINA TAVERNISE
ISTANBUL, Oct. 22 — The Kurdish separatist group that is fighting Turkey from hide-outs in northern Iraq has declared its willingness for a cease-fire, according to a statement posted on a Kurdish Web site on Monday night.
The Turkish military continued shelling along its southern border against the Kurdish group, known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K., a day after the group ambushed Turkish soldiers, killing 12.
[There is that word "ambushed" again!]
In a fresh sign of trouble, the Turkish military acknowledged in a statement that eight of its soldiers were missing after Sunday’s ambush.
[There is that word "ambush" again! Have I made my point, readers?]
Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the Kurdish group’s claim that it had the soldiers was unsubstantiated, describing it as a “psychological operation.”
[Then he admits they are missing, watch.]
Erdogan, before leaving for an official visit to London:
“Right now, as you all know, surveillance and military action conducted by our armed forces continue intensely in the region. We hope that as a result of all this searching and clashes we would have the opportunity to find our eight privates.”
[See the liar lie, reader?]
The Kurdish group said in the statement on Monday that it was willing to stop fighting.
The statement, posted on the Web site of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the political party of Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd:
“We extend the hand of peace once again. We are ready to discuss the issue."
The site gave as its source the Firat News Agency, an online service that often carries statements from the P.K.K.
A Turkish government spokesman did not return calls requesting comment on Monday night. But Turkish officials have been highly skeptical of cease-fires declared by the group in the past. They contend that the cease-fires often have more to do with weather than political intent, because they frequently come just as winter starts to complicate raids in the mountainous terrain in which the militants operate.
[Yeah, they are not genuinely interested in peace, yeah!
So you'd better KILL 'EM, huh?]
The Kurds say the Turks regularly trample on their efforts to make peace.
Turkish officials acknowledge that they do not expect a major crackdown on the group by the United States.
[How could they? A DRAFT?!?!]
But they say that with the recent attacks that have left nearly 40 dead, they have to demonstrate to the public that they are doing something to stop them.
[So, we'll bomb 'em, huh? Hey, at least they are DOING SOMETHING, right?
Never mind that it's the WRONG THING, at least it's something!]
The toll has struck a nerve in Turkish society, and it prompted protests across the country on Monday.
[Got the public all bloodthirsty, did ya? CUI BONO?]
The militant group has called for cease-fires five times since 1993, according to a P.K.K.-linked Web site, Rojaciwan.com. The most recent, in October 2006, was broken last spring on a number of occasions.
A central paradox is built into Turkey’s diplomacy. Turkish officials refuse to hold talks with the regional Iraqi Kurdish authority, saying that recognizing its autonomy would legitimize Kurdish claims for independence, and prefer instead to hold talks with Iraq’s government in Baghdad. But the area where P.K.K. fighters hide is controlled by the local Kurdish authority, and Iraq’s central government has virtually no authority there.
Morton Abramowitz, the American ambassador to Turkey during the Persian Gulf war, referring to the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki:
“There are two powers in northern Iraq: the Americans and the Iraqi Kurds. Talking to Maliki is useless. So the Turks are in a quandary themselves.”
[Bet the Turks are thinking, "Thanks. Thanks a lot, America, for invading and fucking our borders even worse!"
Thanks, assholes!
And if Malaki reads that, WTF?
On your way out, Malaki?]
Turkey’s foreign minister, Ali Babacan, who is scheduled to meet with Iraqi officials in Baghdad on Tuesday:
“There is not even a tiny bit of hesitance.”
Cemil Cicek, a government spokesman, after a cabinet meeting on Monday, put it bluntly:
“We did not have this motion ratified to keep in a closet.”
[Translation: They are GOING IN!]
Call in the "diplomats," right?
Pffffftttttt!!!!
"Bush Administration Urges Iraqi Kurds to Help End Raids Into Turkey" by HELENE COOPER and DAVID S. CLOUD
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 — Scrambling to forestall a threatened Turkish retaliatory attack in northern Iraq, the Bush administration pressed Iraq’s Kurdish leaders on Monday to rein in the Kurdish group whose raids into Turkey have heightened tensions along the border.
But American officials acknowledged that neither the United States nor Iraq had done much recently to constrain the Kurdish group, known as the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K.
The United States lists the P.K.K. as a terrorist organization, but American military commanders in Baghdad have long resisted calls by Turkey to devote American military resources to going after the group in mountainous northern Iraq. The commanders say they have barely enough troops to deal with the insurgency in Iraq, so using them to contain the P.K.K. has never been a serious option.
[I thought the SURGE was SUCCEEDING?
WTF? STILL NOT ENOUGH TROOPS?
WTF? Have I been LIED to by Puke-tray-us, the government, and the MSM?!
WTF?!?!]
The United States has no significant military forces near the Iraqi border with Turkey, in a mountainous part of the autonomous Kurdish region. In concerted messages on Monday, which the State Department spokesman Sean McCormack referred to as a “full diplomatic press,” the White House and the State Department both sought to emphasize that at this point it was up to Iraqi Kurds to demonstrate that they did not want a war with Turkey.
[Yeah, it's up to you victims to demonstrate you don't want your heads squeezed like melons!
Un-fucking-real!]
Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said:
"[President Bush discussed Turkey’s concerns with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq during a video conference on Monday.] The prime minister agreed with President Bush that Turkey should have no doubt about our mutual commitment to end all terrorist activity from Iraqi soil.”
[Unless we are going to use them!]
Administration officials said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had told Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Iraqi Kurdish region, in a telephone call that the relative peace and prosperity of Iraqi Kurdistan was at risk because of the cross-border attacks by the P.K.K.
At the United States’ urging, President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, who is a Kurd, and other Iraqi leaders have made public statements insisting that Iraqi territory should not be used as a staging ground for terrorist attacks. The administration has also urged Turkey not to make retaliatory attacks into Iraq. But Mr. McCormack said the administration’s task had been complicated by a House committee’s vote this month that approved a nonbinding resolution describing the killings of 1.5 million Armenians beginning in 1915 as genocide, a move that so infuriated Turkey that the government recalled its ambassador to the United States.
[WTF? Why mention that?!
That's OVER! Pelosi caved!
Just want to BLAME the Democrats for EVERYTHING, don't cha, Puke?]
Mr. McCormack: “It exacerbates the tension. It raises a question where there shouldn’t be one, about the U.S.-Turkish relationship, and makes it more difficult with respect to Turkish public opinion.”
[Like you guys ever gave a shit about public opinion!
I thought Bush didn't care about polls!]
The genocide resolution appears to have run out of steam in the House, after several Democrats who had initially supported Speaker Nancy Pelosi on it changed their minds.
[Flip-Flop, Flip-Flop!]
Military officials at the Pentagon and in Baghdad said there were no plans to involve American forces, either in assisting Iraqi government forces in moving to the border region or in moving troops there themselves.
A senior military official in Baghdad:
“The Iraqis don’t have the capacity to counter a Turkish incursion, and they know that.”
[That's an "incursion," and Iraq was a "liberation."
But NOT an INVASION!
Zionist War Dailies! Pfffffttttt!]
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, after meeting with Turkey’s defense minister, Vecdi Gonul, at a meeting of European defense ministers in Ukraine:
“A major cross-border operation would be contrary to Turkey’s interests as well as to our own and that of Iraq.”
[But it's all right for Israel or the U.S. to invade anybody they damn well please!
And who thinks this guy is any better than Rumsfeld?
To me, HE'S the SAME!
He wouldn't have gotten the job if he wasn't a Globalist Neo-Con!
It just MOLLIFIED the public because we hated Rumsfeld.
Like we now hate Bush!]
Mr. Gates seemed to lay out the possibility of intelligence-sharing about the locations of P.K.K. militants in northern Iraq.
Gates: "[The key is] developing intelligence that would enable us to find these people. I think that has to precede any action by anybody.”
[Been there for years, got Mossad working up there, Turks must have reams of intelligence on the place, and yet, Gatesey tells a whopper of a LIE!
What were all those BILLIONS for "INTELLIGENCE," then, Gates?
WASTED DOUGH?!?!
Yup!]
Mr. Gonul told reporters: “We would like to have something tangible. We are expecting this.”
[From American intelligence agencies?!
At least that shit ends up in your hands, Turks.
We gotta eat ours!]
American officials say they hope that Turkey will hold off on crossing the border to give diplomacy more time to work.
[The fucking gall! Iraq, shit-sucking HYP-O-CRITES!!!!!!]
In particular, they say, they are hopeful that the P.K.K. will declare a cease-fire.
[Well, they JUST DID!
"Kurdish Rebels Ask for Cease-Fire and Talks With Turkey, Which Continues Shelling"
So NO MORE WAR, right!]
There were a number of steps Iraq could take short of military action against the P.K.K., including disrupting its activities and interdicting shipments of weapons and food.
[Translation: You can starve their women and children!]
American officials said that even if Turkish forces did move into northern Iraq, they were hopeful that the operation would focus on P.K.K. camps in the mountains and not expand to a large-scale raid that might provoke a response from the Kurdish regional government.
The most worrisome situation, however, would be if Turkey conducted large-scale operations and moved close to Mosul, because that could set off wider clashes with Kurdish militias. In that case, the United States might be forced to intervene to separate the two sides, American officials concede."
[Whaaaaaatttt?!?!
WE are going to have to INTERVENE in an alleged SECOND CIVIL WAR in IRAQ?
WTF?!?!?!
I'm SMELLING a DRAFT, big-time, kids!!!!!
Now let me makes this perfectly clear: I WANT OUT OF IRAQ RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!!!!
RIGHT NOW, before the situation is EVEN WORSE for the U.S.!!!!
And WHO wants us to STAY, readers?
FOR WHAT? To play REFEREE!!!?!?
Or to DRIVE the SHIT!?]
Finally, eat this big shit nugget from the N.Y. Times editorial staff:
"Even Closer to the Brink
The news out of Iraq just keeps getting worse. Now Turkey is threatening to send troops across the border to wipe out Kurdish rebel bases, after guerrillas killed at least a dozen Turkish soldiers. This latest crisis should have come as no surprise. But it is one more widely predicted problem the Bush administration failed to plan for before its misguided invasion — and one more problem it urgently needs to deal with as part of a swift and orderly exit from Iraq.
[Yeah, or they wanted it, right? A "Clean Break."]
Turkey’s anger is understandable. Guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the P.K.K., have been striking from bases in Iraqi Kurdistan with growing impunity and effect, using plastic explosives, mines and arms that are far too readily accessible in Iraq. The death toll for Turkish military forces is mounting.
[Yeah, Turkish anger is understandable, but the Kurd rage at 37K of their countryman killed, that's just a bunch of "terrorism."
Times letting you know where they stand, and it is not in the least surprising!]
Turkey’s civilian leaders are feeling strong popular pressure to lash back. The leadership should realize that the conflict is providing a dangerous opening for Turkey’s generals. The military is determined to regain the upper hand over Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom they detest for his party’s roots in Islamic politics.
[Ah, a little CUI BONO, 'eh, readers?
Reminds me of 9/11 and the reasons for that.
CUI BONO?]
Ankara needs to know that an invasion would not only add to Iraq’s chaos and raise the specter of a regional war, it would also do major damage to Turkey’s international standing and finish off its prospects for joining the European Union.
[But NOT to AmeriKa's, right? Pffffftt!
And who gives a shit about being in the E.U. Fuck that!]
There is not a lot of time.
Washington should also explain the dangerous facts of life to the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan, who have done nothing to rein in the guerrillas or drive them out of their territory. Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd, did no good Sunday when he first said he wanted “to solve problems peacefully,” but then declared that Iraq would not even turn over “a Kurdish cat” to Turkey.
[Yeah, "Washington should also explain the dangerous facts of life!"
Un-fucking-real!
And the WMDs are where?]
The Kurds will find it much easier to prosper if they can live in peace with Turkey, whose businessmen already invest heavily in their region. And Mr. Talabani and other Iraqi Kurds need to understand that their enclave of comparative peace and prosperity will not survive a regional war.
[Oh, I see!
The "Iraqi Kurds need to understand," lectures the fucking shitstinking Zionist Times!
They SOUND LIKE BUSH LECTURING US!!!!
Well, FUCK OFF, shitbags!!!!!
Kurds UNDERSTAND ALL TOO WELL after having been BETRAYED BY EVERYONE all these years!!!
So, FUCK OFF, Zionist shit rag!]
Washington must now try to walk both sides back from this brink.
[So we can get ready to invade Iran, huh?]
It then should make a serious and sustained effort to broker a long-overdue political agreement between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan. There is much distrust on both sides. But there is also a lot to talk about. Iraqi Kurds want access routes to sell goods to Europe. Turkey needs a secure border with Iraq.
With so many other problems in Iraq, the Bush administration apparently thought it could ignore this one. It can’t. If it doesn’t now move quickly, Iraq’s disastrous civil war could spiral into an even bigger disaster — a regional war."
[Hey, you can get to World War III a lot quicker by attacking Iran!!
You gonna TAKE YOUR OWN ADVICE and STOP THAT, Times?
I didn't think so, you fucking NaZionist tool!]
