DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, 7 October 2007 — More buffer zones designed to prevent Kurdish rebels crossing over the border to and from Iraq have been established in southeastern Turkey, the Turkish military said yesterday. The 27 zones set up in the regions of Sirnak, Siirt and Hakkari add to others created in June, the military said in a statement posted on its official website.
They are to stay in place until Dec. 10 and are aimed at stopping the flow of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels using northern Iraq as a rear base for operations for southern Turkey, it said. At the same time, security officials in the southeast said a big army sweep was under way to find Kurdish rebels who used heavy weapons to attack a military post in Baskale, near the border with Iran. A soldier was killed in the attack.
Turkey, the European Union and the United States consider the PKK a terrorist organization. More than 37,000 people have been killed since the PKK took up arms in 1984 to fight for an independent Kurdish state.
Meanwhile, Iran will reopen its border with Iraq today after a two-week closure to protest at the detention of an Iranian by US troops, the semi-official news agency Fars reported. “It has been agreed to reopen the borders as of tomorrow (Sunday), Oct. 7, 2007” Iran’s Supreme National Security Council’s deputy in charge of domestic security, Mohammad Jafari, was quoted as saying yesterday.
Tehran had closed its borders with northern Iraq on Sept. 24 following the detention of Mahmoud Farhadi by US forces. The US military charges that Farhadi is an officer in the covert operations arm of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, accused by American commanders of helping Shiite militias involved in Iraq’s bloody sectarian conflict.
Iran and the Kurdish regional government, however, say Farhadi is a businessman who was part of a commercial delegation visiting Sulaimaniyah. According to Kurdistan trade minister Mohammed Raouf, the closure has cost the autonomous Kurdish region one million dollars a day as trucks conveying goods remained stuck at the border.
“After two days of negotiations, it was agreed that Iraq takes necessary steps to control the border and block the penetration of terrorists into the Iranian soil,” Jafari said of the results of recent talks with a high-ranking Kurdish delegation in Tehran.
