Kurdish rebels offer Turkey conditional truce

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AFP) - Iraqi Kurdish rebels said Monday they were ready to lay down their arms if Turkey stopped targeting the rebels and abandoned plans for an incursion into Iraq, according to a rebel website.


"We are ready for a ceasefire if the Turkish army stops attacking our positions, drops plans for an incursion and resorts to peace," said a statement on a website run by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Earlier, Iraq President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, said the rebels were set to declare a unilateral ceasefire on Monday in the face of mounting Turkish threats to strike their bases in northern Iraq.

"The PKK has decided to declare a ceasefire from their side tonight," Talabani told reporters, referring to the separatist PKK, regarded as a terrorist outfit by Turkey and the West.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071022/wl_afp/turkeykurdsunrest_071022155809

[Lone_Star_Dem]

1. Good news.

I hope it holds.

[BridgeTheGap]

2. Don't the Turks have to agree to it first?

One side declaring a truce is meaningless if the other side doesn't go along with it.

[Flabbergasted]

3. Here's another view: Turkey Pressured to Raid Iraq After Troops Go Missing (Update1)

Turkey Pressured to Raid Iraq After Troops Go Missing (Update1)

By Mark Bentley

Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Turkey's government came under increasing pressure to launch a military assault on Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, after eight Turkish soldiers went missing during an attack by the group near the Iraqi border.

Thousands of Turks took to the streets of the nation's cities to call for an immediate raid on camps of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in Iraq's Kurdish controlled north. The government urged calm, saying diplomacy should be given a chance.

``We are calling for common sense and unity,'' government spokesman Cemil Cicek told reporters in Ankara after a meeting of the Cabinet. ``We hope we can avoid using the power vested by parliament to order an incursion into Iraq.''

Turkey has vowed a military assault against the PKK's bases in the mountainous Iraqi region unless the U.S. and Iraq take steps to halt attacks on Turkish targets. The price of crude oil futures rose to a record of more than $90 a barrel last week on concern an attack would disrupt oil exports from Iraq.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aJyoo_umeGws&refer=europe

[Ganja Ninja]

4. There's more than one group willing to stir up trouble if the PKK

doesn't. I wouldn't put much faith in this working out.

[Tempest]

5. This amounts to a plea of "don't hurt me"

After punching Mike Tyson in the face.

Until the PKK lays down its arms and disbands, anything they say should be ignored.

[ohio2007]

6. the PKK are "separatists" which means.... they continue to demand

their own homeland carved out of SE Turkey.
PKK may want to protect their non communist Kurdish hosts in Iraq and hope the Turks will take the offer.

They still want their own real estate and would risk civil war in Turkey to get it.

[azurnoir]

7. They made Turkey an offer a few years ago

that did not include a separate country, Turkey said no.

http://www.flashpoints.info/countries-conflicts/Turkey-Kurdistan-web/Turkey-Kurdistan_briefing.html