Ocalan: US won’t attack PKK/KADEK

Giving an inteview to the British newspaper the Guardian at his terrorist base on Qandil Mountain, one of the leaders of seperatist terror organization Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK/KADEK) and brother of PKK Chieftain Abdullah Ocalan, Osman Ocalan claimed that "I don’t think the U.S. will come to attack us as Turkey is urging them to do… I don’t think they will allow Turkey to attack us either."

According to the newspaper, despite the tightening of the noose, terrorist Ocalan appears confident that airstrikes or ground attacks on his terrorist positions can be avoided, at least for now.

Stating that "We want to cooperate, not fight, with the British and U.S. forces to see a stable and democratic Iraq," the senior leader of PKK/KADEK Ocalan claimed that his terrorist group has had a number of "informal" contacts with American forces in northern Iraq. "We are in the process of learning more about each other. But there is nothing official."

"We are preparing for winter, not war," said Ocalan to the Guardian as he bends to scoop water from the mountain stream rushing past his stone cottage. He says that the corrugated iron, hauled up from the valley hundreds of feet below, will make valuable roofing material.

Turkish Parliament approved a government motion to send Turkish troops to Iraq, and Ocalan and the PKK, which fought the Turkish state in a bloody terrorist campaign in the 1980s and 1990s, were key bargaining points in discussions with Washington, which has been urging Turkey to send forces across the border.

The Guardian wrote that "Unlike Massoud Barazani and Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi Kurd leaders who control the self-rule area — part of which the party has now hived off for itself — Ocalan says he does not oppose the principle of Turkish troops in Iraq."

Saying, "But they must keep well away from Kurdish areas and not build permanent logistical bases in the north to protect supply lines south," Ocalan stated that his militants "will not seek to attack Turkish forces unless they are attacked". He adds: "We adopt a position of legitimate defence. Attacking us would create problems everywhere, in Turkey and Iraq."

Also the Turks must not, he insists, involve themselves in the internal politics of sensitive cities such as Mosul and Kirkuk. According to the report of the newspaper, Ocalan wants Turkish troops to stay away from the 10,000 Turkish Kurdish refugees who live in a refugee camp run by the United Nations at Makhmour, 50 miles south of Erbil. Many of the refugees who crossed into Iraq in the early 90s to escape the fighting in south-eastern Turkey are relatives of PKK militants but insist they themselves are not members of the outlawed party. Ankara has claimed the camp is an unofficial training camp for the PKK.

According to the Guardian, the stakes remain high for all sides. U.S. forces in Iraq, already stretched in the centre and south of the country, are unlikely to want to embark on a campaign against Ocalan’s militants which could mean disturbing the relative calm of the north. "We are not looking to butt heads with them right now, but ultimately [the PKK’s] presence is untenable," said Lieutenant Colonel Harry Schute, who commands activities in the Kurdish controlled parts of the former self-rule area.

The Turkish government should also take better care of his brother, Osman Ocalan warns. Abdullah Ocalan is now reported to be suffering from health problems while he is kept in solitary confinement in a prison located on Imrali island, in the sea of Marmara. "He should be sent to a prison on the mainland with better conditions. That will make the political ground softer and help prepare the country for peace," claimed Ocalan.

But Turkey’s most wanted man adds chillingly: "If anything happens to him it’ll be taken as a death penalty against him. The situation will get out of control, and all of Turkey will burn."