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Ocalan Warns Of Renewing War
WASHINGTON & ANKARA, Jan 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan has warned that his supporters will renew their armed struggle if the Turkish government launches new attacks against Kurds.
"We do not want war, but if we are attacked with the aim of being eradicated, we will use the universal right of legitimate defense," Ocalan said in a statement released by his lawyers.
Ocalan's statement made an apparent reference to Turkish efforts to build an alliance with Kurdish groups in northern Iraq against Ocalan's group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), saying: "recent developments have increased the risk of war, which could spill over to the north."
Clashes between the PKK and Turkish troops have died down in the mostly Kurdish part of southeast and east Turkey since September 1999, when the PKK said it was halting its 15-year armed campaign for self-rule and pulling out of Turkey to seek a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict.
Since then, some 8,000 PKK members have moved to northern Iraq, according to local Kurdish leaders.
Turkey maintains troops in northern Iraq, which has been out of Baghdad's control since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, but denies reports that it recently sent reinforcements to the region to fight the Turkish Kurds.
But the powerful Turkish military has played down the peace bid as a ploy saying that the PKK should either surrender or face the army.
Since 1984, some 36,500 lives have been claimed since the PKK took up arms, according to official figures.
"The past two years have passed without pain as a result to the PKK's great efforts to end fighting and promote a democratic and peaceful resolution to the Kurdish problem," Ocalan said.
"This positive situation should be correctly evaluated both by Turkey and the forces in northern Iraq," he added. "But the stance of the present government does not appear to be fit for concrete steps towards a solution."
Even though under increasing European Union pressure to grant the Kurds cultural rights, membership candidate Turkey has so far failed to make any reforms to legalize broadcasts and education in Kurdish.
Ocalan also emphasized that, "I do not issue war orders, but on the contrary, I am trying to develop a democratic solution based on a unitary state and laying down of arms."
Ocalan called on the two Kurdish factions controlling northern Iraq to mediate between Ankara and the PKK for a peaceful resolution to the conflict instead of "warmongering."
In a recent visit to Ankara, the head of one of the groups, Jalal Talabani, vowed to purge the region of PKK members that have retreated from Turkey.
"We will oblige them by all means to leave our area," Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said.
The PUK, which had good ties with the PKK in the past, has been fighting the PKK in recent months, which it accuses of attacking its positions in an attempt to destabilize the Kurdish-held enclave.
The second faction, the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP) of Massoud Barzani, has long supported frequent Turkish incursions into northern Iraq to pursue PKK members.
Ankara says the PKK uses the region, outside of Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf War, as a launching pad for attacks on Turkey.
Ocalan's warning followed Wednesday's gun attack in Diyarbakir, the center of Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, which left the local police chief and five officers dead.
An Islamist group, the Turkish Hizbullah, is believed to be behind Wednesday's attack.
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