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Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses. |
35 Iraqi Kurdish Civilians Killed in a Turkish Air Strike, Erdogan Regrets it
December 30, 2011
Irate Kurds bury Turkish air strike civilian victims
By ekurd.net staff writers
December 30, 2011
GULYAZI,
The Kurdish region of Turkey, —
Thousands of irate Kurds Friday buried 35 Kurdish civilians
killed in a Turkish air raid and branded Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan a murderer.
The weeping mourners accompanied the coffins
of victims of Thursday's strike to the cemetery in Gulyazi village, near
the Iraqi border, from the nearby town of Uludere where a service was
held at the mosque.
The coffins were brought in a long convoy of
cars and ambulances, sounding their horns as mourners flashed defiant V
for victory signs.
"Erdogan is a murderer," the crowd chanted.
"He was a sapling, we could not plant him," cried the mother of
13-year-old Vedat Encu.
"I want to tell the head of the general
staff that my son is a martyr and he didn't have any kind of weapons,"
Encu's father screamed as the body was transferred to the grave.
Erdogan on Friday offered his condolences to the families of the victims
for what he called an "unfortunate and distressing" incident.
"Images transmitted by drones showed a group of 40 people in the area,
it was impossible to say who they were," he said. "Afterwards it was
determined they were smugglers transporting cigarettes and fuel on
mules."
In his first reaction to the strike by Turkish air force
F-16s on the border with Iraqi Kurdistan late Wednesday, the prime
minister said that "no state deliberately bombs its own people."
He said that separatist rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) had
used the same route and methods to bring weapons into Turkey to mount
attacks, and called for critics to await the result of an official
inquiry.
But mourners on Friday rubbished that argument.
"It is impossible to kill them mistakenly. The pilots were 150 metres
(500 feet) up and had a bird's eye view," said 20-year-old Mehmet from
Ortasu village, near the site of the raid.
Mehmet, who also makes
his living by smuggling goods from the border, said: "I could have been
one of the (victims)."
A young woman whose cousin died in the
bombing was in tears.
"This was no mistake. They intentionally
killed people, who were trying to earn a crust," she said.
According to Firat, families at the funerals urged the PKK, whose
Kurdish acronym stands for Kurdistan Workers' Party, to take revenge and
they accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being a
"murderer."
The Kurdish conflict is a drag on Turkey's efforts to
burnish its image as a regional model and advocate for democratic change
in neighboring countries such as Syria, where thousands have died since
an uprising began in March.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a
chief architect of Turkey's rising profile, said the airstrikes would be
thoroughly investigated.
"Whatever are the requirements of a
state of law, these will be done. No one can claim that such an event
was intentional," Hurriyet newspaper quoted Davutoglu as saying. "This
is a sad event, it should not be made a subject for political
exploitation. The incident will be investigated and whatever is
necessary will be done."
The military issued a message of
condolence that was carried on the state-run Anadolu news agency. There
was no apology, but such a public outreach is highly unusual in the
Turkish armed forces,www.ekurd.net which are traditionally tightlipped
about operations and have seen their political influence decline in
recent years.
Since it was established in 1984, the PKK has been
fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional
existence of Kurds, to establish a Kurdish state in the south east of
the country, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.
But now its aim is the creation an autonomous Kurdish region and
more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds who constitute the greatest
minority in Turkey, numbering more than 20 million. A large Turkey's
Kurdish community openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK rebels.
PKK's demands included releasing PKK detainees, lifting the ban on
education in Kurdish, paving the way for an autonomous democrat Kurdish
system within Turkey, reducing pressure on the detained PKK leader
Abdullah Öcalan, stopping military action against the Kurdish party and
recomposing the Turkish constitution.
Turkey refuses to
recognize its Kurdish population as a distinct minority. It has allowed
some cultural rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish language
and private Kurdish language courses with the prodding of the European
Union, but Kurdish politicians say the measures fall short of their
expectations.
The PKK is considered as 'terrorist' organization
by Ankara, U.S., the PKK continues to be on the blacklist list in EU
despite court ruling which
overturned a decision to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its
political wing on the European Union's terror list.
In November
Turkey bombed the Sulaimaniyah and Erbil provinces of Iraq's autonomous
northern Kurdish region, wounding a civilian, Kurdish officials said.
Since August 17, Turkish jets repeatedly carried out air strikes against
the Kurdish PKK separatist group's bases in Iraqi Kurdistan region,
under justification of chasing elements of the anti-Ankara PKK, forcing
large numbers of Kurdish citizens of those areas to desert their home
villages, including an air raid that
killed 7 Kurdish civilians in a village north of Kurdistan’s
Sulaimaniyah city on August 21st.
Erdogan regrets Kurdish civilian airstrike deaths
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced regret Friday after the country’s military acknowledged that its deadly air strike on Kurdish civilians on the Iraqi border had been an operational mistake.
News Wires (text)
France 24, December 30, 2011
AFP - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed regret Friday for the killing of 35 Kurdish civilians in an air strike as mourners vented their fury and rebels called for an uprising.
As locals buried their dead, Erdogan admitted that the victims of Wednesday night's attack near the Iraqi border were smugglers and not separatist rebels as the army had originally claimed.
The military also offered its condolences on Friday in a rare gesture that appeared to acknowledge its error, but neither it nor Erdogan were able to assuage the sense of grief among locals.
Speaking to journalists in Istanbul, Erdogan voiced his regret for what he called an "unfortunate and distressing" incident.
"Images transmitted by drones showed a group of 40 people in the area, it was impossible to say who they were," he said. "Afterwards it was determined they were smugglers transporting cigarettes and fuel on mules."
In his first reaction to the strike by Turkish air force F-16s, Erdogan said that "no state deliberately bombs its own people."
He said that separatist rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) had used the same route and methods to bring weapons into Turkey to mount attacks, and called for critics to await the result of an official inquiry.
The acknowledgement that the strike had been an error was given short shrift by the PKK itself, a group regarded as a terrorist organisation both by the Ankara government and the West.
"This massacre was no accident ... It was organised and planned," Bahoz Erdal from the PKK's armed wing said in a statement.
"We urge the people of Kurdistan... to react after this massacre and seek a settling of accounts through uprisings," Erdal added.
The PKK uses the term "uprising" for sweeping civil disobedience as well as clashes with the police.
In the village of Gulyazi, home to many of the victims, locals were also unmoved by the expressions of condolences as the funerals took place.
"This was no mistake," said one young woman, who lost her cousin in the bombing. "They intentionally killed people, who were trying to earn a crust," she sobbed as she walked behind the coffin.
The bodies were transferred from a mosque in the nearby town of Uludere after early morning prayers, and driven to Gulyazi in a long convoy of ambulances and cars. Thousands of people attended the funerals.
"I want to tell the chief of the general staff that my son is a martyr. He was just 13, and he did not have any kind of weapon," cried the father of 13-year-old Vedat Encu, as his son's body was interred.
There were similar outpourings of grief and anger in Uludere.
"Damn you, Erdogan ... One day you too will know our pain," shouted one group of protesters who had gathered in the town centre.
Turkey's military command said it carried out the air strike after a spy drone spotted a group moving toward its sensitive southeastern border under cover of darkness late Wednesday, in an area known to be used by militants.
The main pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) said the planes had bombed villagers from Kurdish majority southeastern Turkey who were smuggling sugar and fuel across the border on mules and donkeys.
While branding the bombing "a massacre of civilians", BDP leader Selahattin Demirtas called on the Kurdish population to respond "by democratic means."
Several hundred people demonstrated Friday in Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, burning the Turkish flag. Hundreds also protested in the city of Sulaimaniyah.
The bombing had already sparked protests in Turkey on Thursday, with a demonstration in Istanbul's Taksim Square called by the BDP drawing 2,000 people.
Afterwards, several hundred youths shouting pro-PKK slogans threw stones at riot police, who responded with water cannon and tear gas.
Police also clashed with protesters in Diyarbakir and Sirnak, two mainly Kurdish towns in the southeast, firing tear gas and water cannon in response to demonstrators who threw stones and petrol bombs, local security officials said.
Clashes between Kurdish rebels and the army have escalated in recent months.
The Turkish military launched an operation on militant bases inside northern Iraq in October after a PKK attack killed 24 soldiers in the border town of Cukurca, the army's biggest loss since 1993.
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