Turkey Offers Amnesty to Its Rebels in Iraq

The Turkish parliament on Tuesday approved a limited amnesty for Kurdish rebels hiding in northern Iraq, a U.S.-sought step aimed at ridding that region of both the fighters and the Turkish troops arrayed against them.

Hoping the move will also enhance Turkey’s chances of joining the European Union, the ruling Justice and Development Party pushed the law through parliament with ease.

The law will reduce prison sentences for some jailed Kurdish separatists and pardon those who lay down their weapons in Iraq and return home, as long as they did not participate in attacks against Turkish targets.

Passing the amnesty law may help ease tensions between Turkey and the United States, which were inflamed over the war in Iraq. Turkey is also considering a U.S. request that it send troops to join peacekeeping forces in central Iraq.

An estimated 5,000 ethnic Kurds of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, are thought to be holed up in the mountains of northern Iraq. Ankara and Washington both consider the group of Turkish Kurds to be a terrorist organization.

U.S. officials have assured Turkish officials that once the amnesty is approved and eligible Kurds take advantage of it, the U.S. military will move to eliminate any remaining PKK camps.

“They will be gone,” Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman said in an interview with Turkish television broadcast Tuesday.

U.S. officials, and their allies among Iraqi Kurds, have been nervous over the presence of several thousand Turkish troops in northern Iraq. On July 4, tensions reached a breaking point when the U.S. military captured 11 Turkish soldiers suspected of plotting to assassinate a Kurdish governor in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

Turkey has countered that it must maintain an armed presence in northern Iraq to protect itself from cross-border attacks by the PKK.

By promising to eliminate the PKK presence, the U.S. expects to be able to demand that Turkish forces withdraw from northern Iraq. “Once there is no threat from the PKK in northern Iraq,” Grossman said, Turkish forces “should then depart.”

It remains to be seen whether the PKK will embrace the amnesty offer. The group’s leaders have already said the offer does not go far enough, in part because it does not include the organization’s top militants.

A leading Kurdish political party said Tuesday night that it would send mediators to attempt to woo fighters to the amnesty, but the Turkish military probably won’t allow them to cross into Iraq.

PKK leaders also complained that the amnesty promised nothing more than what was offered by previous laws.

Turkey, which for 15 years fought a Kurdish uprising that cost more than 30,000 lives, passed seven amnesty plans between 1985 and 1999. Only 832 people have availed themselves of the offers, according to Husnu Ondul, leader of Turkey’s Human Rights Assn.

The only difference between this amnesty and previous attempts is the context, Ondul said. Fighting subsided after the PKK suspended its revolt in 1999 following the capture of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

The Turkish government has additional motives for pushing through the amnesty. Turkey is on a full-press campaign to be invited to join the European Union and, as part of the process, is enacting a wide range of reforms to move it closer to the democratic standards of the EU.

Improving the status of Turkey’s long-oppressed Kurdish minority would help the nation’s pursuit of membership. To the chagrin of Turkey’s powerful military, parliament last month passed reforms that increased the freedoms of 12 million ethnic Kurds by allowing them to broadcast on television and radio in their own language and to give their children Kurdish names.

In addition, a controversial law against separatist propaganda used to jail intellectuals, journalists and politicians, most of them Kurds, was repealed.

But, like the amnesty, many of these reforms remain on paper with little change on the ground.

“It’s a work in progress,” Ondul said. “These laws have to be implemented, and we see a lot of resistance at that level.”