.jpg)
News and comment by The Kurdistan Tribune:
Turkey has amassed 21,000 armed personnel on its border with south Kurdistan, sending thousands of troops across the border following the recent attack by the PKK.
This is not the first time this has happened. In 2009 Turkey carried out a similar operation but the PKK emerged from that confrontation stronger than before. Every attack by Turkish troops in northern Iraq/south Kurdistan territory has been doomed to failure – Turkey has paid a heavy penalty.
Nechirvan Barzani, the KDP leader and Masud Barzani’s especial envoy, was in Turkey yesterday to try to appease the Turkish authorities and assure them that the KRG is not in agreement with the PKK.
While we are preparing for a new phase of conflict, from Spain there is news of the cessation of armed struggle by the ETA separatist group after almost 40 years of conflict which included the assassination of the Spanish prime minister in the 1970s. In Ireland the IRA reached a similar destiny with the help of European mediation and strategic support. There must also be a way out of the 30-year old conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state.
The PKK is asking for the right of self-determination and Europe should initiate peace efforts before the situation escalates even further. Surely, if Europe is capable of helping resolve the ETA and IRA conflicts, it must also be able to assist with ending this conflict before it engulfs the whole region.
I am for Kurdish independence and If my country, USA, didn’t have its’ head up its’ butt our gov’t would have helped the kurds have an independent nation before leave Iraq and crushed all Bathist. The Kurds are the people we should be promoting in Iraq in any way we can. I am sixty and retired but I would like to fight with the Kurds and help them have a big nation…The USA should arm them and help them create a federal republican form of gov’t. The Kurds are more civilized than the bargaric Sadam supporters that Patreaus stupidly became friends with instead of killing them for war crimes against the Kurds. I don’t like Turks…they enjoy genocide and have since killing 2.5 million Armenians and the Turks have not changed. Kurds live in peace with Christians. Arabs kill Christians. Big difference,so, I choose Kurds.