Former leader of Kurd rebels reveals retreat into Iran

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3129674.ece

By Patrick Cockburnin Arbil
Published: 05 November 2007
Turkish Kurd guerrillas are leaving Iraqi Kurdistan for Iran in order to avoid an attack by the Turkish army according to a former leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK.

Osman Ocalan, brother of the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, said: "the PKK has decreased its forces in Iraqi Kurdistan and they are moving to Iran. It is part of PKK tactics that when they feel pressure in one country they move to another."

President George Bush and the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are to meet today in Washington to discuss what can be done about the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan, from which it has been staging attacks on Turkish army units.

The news that the PKK is moving its mobile fighters into Iranian Kurdistan – where they have escalated attacks on Iranian government forces – further complicates any action against the guerrillas.

Mr Ocalan was at the top of Turkey's most wanted list until he left the PKK because he had fallen in love with a woman who was a fellow PKK fighter. PKK rules forbade relationships between guerrillas, so they fled the mountains in 2004, where he had lived for 18 years, in order to marry.

As a founder member of the PKK and the brother of its revered leader, Mr Ocalan is well informed about the actions and intentions of the organisation. In an interview in Arbil he estimated the total strength of the PKK guerrillas at just under 7,000. "There are 2,750 fighters in Turkey," he said. "A further 2,500 are in the border areas of Iraq and 1,500 are in Iran." It is the PKK's war in Iran, where there is a Kurdish minority of four million, that is escalating. "In the last six months the PKK has started a war against Iran."

We can't keep track of their loyalties and alliances.