PKK Terrorism, Northern Iraq

Democracy is not a suicide pact. No nation is required to be too weak to defend its own democratic dispensation. Accordingly, the Republic of Turkey should not be faulted for its pending initiative through chief prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya to ban the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, before the Constitutional Court featuring all the trappings of due process. read more

Just as it did in the violence-ridden twentieth century, Turkey bears the dubious distinction of having to fight perhaps the most varied medley of outlaws bent on destroying its way of life in the new millenium. read more

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan paid a two-day visit to Iraq last week, which Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called “historic.” The two prime ministers signed a joint political declaration on the establishment of a "high-level strategic cooperation council" between the governments. The two prime ministers said that this effort will help forge a "long-term strategic partnership" between Turkey and Iraq. read more

While the PKK concentrates on non-violent activities and propaganda work in Germany and Europe, in Turkey it is involved in a violent struggle for an autonomous Kurdish homeland. The kidnapping of three German tourists has put the issue firmly back on the political agenda in Berlin. read more

On February 21, Turkish ground forces crossed the Iraqi border in an attempt to dismantle Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorist camps, following weeks of periodic aerial bombardment that began in mid-December. The incursion was partly the product... read more

Terrorist landmines exploding, paramilitary police stations being overrun, helicopters shot down, and cross-border incursions: The were daily headlines in Turkish newspapers covering the campaign against PKK terrorism in the first half of the 1990s. read more

On February 13, Frank Urbancic, deputy counterterrorism coordinator at the State Department, told CNN-Turk, "The PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] is like the mafia all over Europe." He added that in addition to its terrorist presence in Europe, the PKK has an "octopus-like structure carrying out criminal activity, including drug and people smuggling" to raise funds... read more

It has been nearly two months since the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) sparked an international crisis with a major attack inside Turkey (…) President Bush promised Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Washington would aid Turkey's fight against terrorism. Heady talk of intelligence sharing and cooperation followed and, indeed, may have been a factor in Turkish air strikes on PKK targets in Iraqi Kurdistan. read more

Contrary to media reports, the Marxist-Leninist terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party's (PKK) ambition is not regional autonomy in Turkey. read more

On November 5, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and deputy chief of military staff Gen. Ergin Saygun visited President Bush in Washington to discuss the growing threat posed by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The composition of the Turkish delegation was symbolically important and demonstrates a new political stability based on the working... read more

It's been nearly two months since the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) sparked an international crisis with a major attack inside Turkey , and more than six weeks since President Bush promised Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Washington would aid Turkey 's fight against terrorism. read more

The recent saber-rattling by Iraq’s Kurdish leaders toward Turkey is disappointing and does injustice to the support that Turkey has given to the Kurdish population in northern Iraq for nearly 40 years. read more

The recent saber-rattling by Iraq’s Kurdish leaders toward Turkey is disappointing and does injustice to the support that Turkey has given to the Kurdish population in northern Iraq for nearly 40 years. read more

The PKK has recently increased its attacks inside Turkey, including suicide bombings, killing more than eighty people since the beginning of 2007. Most of these attacks involve improvised explosive devices (IEDs) similar to those being used against U.S. troops in Iraq. Given the escalated PKK-related violence, how likely are Turkish incursions into Iraq at this stage? read more

According to Turkish authorities and international news agencies, members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) killed a villager, Ikram Oner,55, on July 28 in southeast Turkey for refusing to supply the terrorists with food. The attack occurred in the southeastern province of Siirt, near the border with Iraq. Three terrorists came to Oner’s village and demanded food and supplies. When Oner refused, they forcibly took him outside the village and killed him execution style. read more

The PKK is an armed terrorist organization, listed as such by the U.S. Government and the European Union. read more

Bruce Fein - The United States is imploring Turkey to desist from invading northern Iraq to combat the PKK, a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization that keenly relishes the slaughter of Turkish teachers, doctors, technicians, engineers, Kurdish village guards and police, and otherwise. read more

The "Kurdish problem" used to be a Turkish problem, a Syrian problem, an Iranian problem and an Iraqi problem. The U.S. invasion of Iraq has turned it into an American problem -- and lately, a very vexing one. read more

The visit by Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the White House on November 5 marks an important test of the relationship between America and its best ally in the Muslim world. In Erdogan, the U.S. has a friend who is that rarest of rarities: a democratically elected, democratically minded, economically liberal Islamist — an important bridge between the Muslim world and the secular West. read more

ANKARA, Turkey — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday branded the Kurdistan Workers' Party a "terrorist organization" and a "common enemy" of the United States, Turkey and Iraq, but she stopped short of committing Washington to military action against the guerrilla force. read more

The United States welcomes the release of eight Turkish soldiers who were captured by the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on October 21. The eight Turkish soldiers were handed over to Iraqi officials, who then delivered them to United States military personnel for transfer to Turkish authorities. read more

The PKK is an armed terrorist organization, listed as such by the U.S. Government and the European Union. It employs force and the threat of force against civilian and military targets to achieve its political goals. The PKK seeks to create an independent, communist, ethnically pure Kurdish state in an area that it calls Kurdistan. Calling PKK terrorists rebels or guerrillas... read more

America is new in the Middle East; to put it correctly, the US remains for more than 60 years a novice. This alone illuminates the problem perfectly well. America did not just fail in the Middle East; by allying itself with those with whom the US should never be connected, America - under either Republican or Democratic administration - damaged severely the perspectives of diffusing the ideals of the Founding Fathers in the area. read more