Turkey vs the PKK
Riz Khan speaks with a panel of experts on the rising tension in the region.
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| Turkey has massed between 80,000 and 100,000 troops on the border with Iraq [AFP] |
On Tuesday, Riz speaks with a panel of experts on the rising tension between Turkey and the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
For more than 20 years the PKK has been fighting Turkish forces in pursuit of their dream to carve an independent Kurdish state out of parts of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Almost 40,000 people – most of them Kurdish – have died in the conflict.
In the past month, the PKK has escalated its attacks, prompting Turkey to threaten to invade northern Iraq, where many of the Kurdish rebels are based.
The US has asked the Iraqi government to crack down on the PKK, but the Iraqi government is generally powerless to act.
Turkey has massed between 80,000 and 100,000 troops on the border with Iraq, and has been threatening to invade the northern part of the country to pursue the estimated 3,000 PKK fighters there.
The US has asked Turkey for restraint. But relations between Ankara and Washington were inflamed earlier in the month, after a committee of the US House of Representatives approved a resolution labelling the Turkish massacre of Armenians about a hundred years ago a genocide.
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This episode of Riz Khan aired on Tuesday October 30, 2007
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