It may be that the issues between the Kurds and Turkey will end up being a very similar scenario to that of Israel and Palestine. These Middle East havens of Western presence are defendable through Western wealth and influence. Kurdistan is real. It won't go away. The 'idea' Turkey can eliminate Kurds from within their borders is to realize they are willing to commit genocide. There needs to be a recognition by the Global Community that the Kurds have been oppressed in the Middle East and they have a right to exist no different than Palestine does. It's time for a Paradyme shift regarding the Kurds and Turkey. Where is the Kurdish Arraf today?
Mexmur refugee camp grows, future remains uncertain (click on title entry)
Kurdismedia-It takes less than an hour driving west from the relative safety of Hewler (Erbil), the administrative capital of the Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region, for a traveler to reach the provincial boundaries of Hewler and end up in the Mosul province. Lying just over this somewhat artificial but nonetheless very significant border is the city of Mexmur (Mahmur or Mahmour), which hosts a large UNHCR-administered refugee camp that serves as home for thousands of Kurds originally from Turkey, the first of whom were driven from their homes in 1994.
Visitors can enter the camp after checking any weapons and leaving their passports with the armed security personnel in UN uniforms who work the entry checkpoint, a small station that flies the UN flag. A visitor is issued a pass upon entry which is used to claim his or her passport upon exit. I handed over my passport to a UN officer, an Iraqi Kurd (judging by his Kurdish accent), and was given my pass. I was number 11. I entered the camp for the second time in my life, the first being in 2004. Many things had changed but others remained much the same.
In three years time, the population of the camp had grown from approximately 7,000 to almost double that – 13,000 or 14,000 depending on who I asked. The reason? One man told me, as if I asked a slightly obvious question, that, of course, people are having babies. While the population has grown and the hospital, which opened only a few years ago, has improved, it is still quite small and unable to service complicated medical needs....
...The refugees of Mexmur are Kurds and pride themselves on their identity, and this is the reason they were originally driven from their homes. They struggle day by day to survive in the Mexmur camp, not knowing what lies ahead given the uncertain political climate and the persistent demands of the Turkish state to close the camp. While children are now born and raised in the camp, the refugees still hope that someday a just solution to their predicament will be a reality. Clocks in the camp are set to Turkish time, one hour behind the local time in Iraq. It remains to be seen if someday the thousands of refugees of Mexmur will be able to leave their current state of limbo, a perpetual state of struggle and uncertainty, and wake up to live free as Kurds in the cities, towns, and villages that their ancestors called home.
By Özgür Askeroğlu
So now to insure it's oil deliveries in maintaining Iraqi sovereignty are raiding Kurdish refugee camps to stem the violence by Turkey. Who are Turkey's 'Yes Men?' Instead of bombs, it will just be bullets and a 'northern' Baghdad.
US raids alleged PKK camp in northern Iraq (click here)
...Ankara claims that the Mahmur Camp is a safe haven for the PKK, and was demanding from the United States that the camp should be closed down.
An official of the Mahmur district, Abdurrahman Palef, said that Iraqi army and coalition forces launched the operation to the camp, which harbors around 10,000 Kurdish refugees from Turkey, yesterday morning. Spokesperson of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Turkey, Metin Çorabatır, confirmed that there had been a raid on the camp.
Palef said that the aim of the operation was �to get a head count, identity verification and see if there were any military elements at the camp," reported Doğan News Agency. "Not even one bullet was found during the operation," he said. "There are no problems."
The news of the search was welcomed by Turkey's Anti-Terror Special Envoy, Edip Başer.
Başer, a retired general noted that they had informed the United States about the situation at the camp. "I think this is the first step of the decision [to take action against the camp]. As it is difficult to separate civilians and terrorists, I think the aim is to scan residents," he said....
In most circles it's called ethnic cleansing. Turkey is attempting to remove Kurdish emcampments from within it's borders. It's impossible and while the PKK is noted by most to be a terrorist organization, so was the PLO at one time. All of Turkey is not sovereign and hasn't been for a long time.
Mahmur camp in N Iraq surrounded by Iraqi soldiers (click here)
www.chinaview.cn 2007-11-22 20:23:40
Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq
Sirnak, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- A large camp in northern Iraq has been surrounded by Iraqi army, reported a Xinhua correspondent at the Turkish-Iraqi border on Thursday.
Iraqi soldiers set up check points in front of the Mahmur camp in which people ran away from Turkey in 1990's are living, and do not let foreign people, including the members of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) to enter into the camp. Turkey has claimed that the Mahmur camp was under control of the PKK and was logistics source for the PKK.
Vehicles and people who want to enter into the camp are being checked by Iraqi soldiers.
The Iraqi soldiers dug positions near the camp to prevent foreign people from reaching it and by the way, they patrol near the camp with jeeps.
They don't let anybody, except people who are living in the camp, to enter, said Youssef Abdurrahman, the chief of subdivision of soldiers, adding, "we do check 24 hours and put the camp under control. We are checking everywhere."
"Nobody can enter and the daily life is going on normally in the camp which is closed to journalists," added Addurrahman.
Local media reported that there are nearly 10,000 people living in the camp and there is a school and hospital in it.
Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops along the mountainous border with Iraq in preparation for the cross-border operation to crush the about 3,000 strong PKK rebels in northern Iraq, which was approved by the Turkish parliament last month.
The PKK took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast. More than 30,000 people have been killed in more than two decades conflict.
Editor: Lin Li
This is a Turkish paper:
Northern Iraqi government talks about steps taken against PKK terror (click here)
Fuat Hussein, spokesman for northern Iraqi regional leader Massoud Barzani, spoke yesterday to Dogan News Agency reporters about steps that the Barzani administration had taken against PKK terrorists located in the region. Said Hussein, "The steps we have taken against the PKK are first and foremost to ensure that our citizens interests are not damaged." Hussein listed some of the steps being taken as including an increase in security control checks of people and vehicles entering and leaving the Mahmur Camp area, and as an increase in police check points in and around the Kandil Mountain area, where the PKK is known to have training camps. Hussein also noted that flight coming in to and departing from the Erbil Airport were being checked more carefully by security forces. In terms of media strictures, Hussein also told reporters yesterday that western media journalists had been forbidden from carrying out interviews with PKK terrorists in the northern Iraqi camps, as has happened quite frequently up until now.
