From: TEX5HAD@CMS1.LEEDS.AC.UK (Haluk DEMIRBAG)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: ANKARA ASKED TO BEAT BAGHDAD BLOCKADE THIS WINTER
Date: 6 Oct 1992 21:13:42 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
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ANKARA ASKED TO BEAT BAGHDAD BLOCKADE THIS WINTER

AID FOR KURDS MAY GO THROUGH TURKEY

Pam O'Toole in Ankara

The United States has approached  Turkey for help in launching an
emergency  aid programme  for  the Kurds  of  northern Iraq.  The
request, made  to Ankara within  the last week,  follows warnings
that about 750,000 people face severe hardship or starvation this
winter.

It marks  the first  step in  an initiative by  the West  and the
United Nations to help the  Kurds, who are facing acute shortages
caused by a year-long economic  blockade by the Bghdad government
and UN sanctions against Iraq.

Details are  being drawn up  of a "winter survival  programme" to
provide food,  fuel, shelter and  medicine for the  750,000 Kurds
deemed most at risk. Officials  fear that unless more aid reaches
them, there is likely to be a new exodus of Kurds to Turkey.

However,  getting  the aid  to  those  who  need it  could  cause
diplomatic problems. Baghdad has refused to renew an agreement on
the Un humanitarian aid programme in northern Iraq and has denied
visas for some UN staff.

The United States and Britain are meanwhile insisting that the UN
does  not abandon  the  Kurds,  and while  the  UN  says it  will
continue to  put pressure on  Baghdad, officials are  now talking
about channelling relief through Turkey.

However,  if aid  goes  this way,  Iraq must  agree  to it  being
carried across its  borders in order for the  operation to comply
with UN principles, which looks unlikely.

One  UN official  said: "Some  major, and  perhaps unprecedented,
political decisions  may have to be  made in New York  if Baghdad
refuses to co-operate."

The UN headquarters in New York will have to respond quickly. Its
Geneva aid office says that the  plan will have to be approved by
the end of this  month to enable supplies to be  put in place and
as many as 200 extra UN  guards to be dispatched to supervise the
operation.

It is still not clear how Turkey will react. Ankara has supported
Western aid  programmes for the Kurds  in the past but  it may be
wary of  coming publicly  involved in  an operation  that Baghdad
would regard as a blatant violation of its sovereignty.

Sending UN aid convoys through  south-eastern Turkey would give a
much-needed boost to the local  economy, but could cause security
problems.

Convoys  would  be  at  risk  of  attack  by  Kurdish  separatist
militants in  Turkey, who only  last month mounted a  blockade to
prevent lorries loaded with supplies croossing into Kurdish areas
of Iraq.

Independent  aid  agencies  working  in the  region,  which  have
previously criticised the UN for  its inaction, have welcomed the
UN's plans.

Joan Anderson,  Gulf co-ordinator  of Save  the Children  who has
just returned from  northern Iraq, said: "We support  the UN plan
if  it can  be made  to work  quickly and  successfully. But  our
concern is that it is  concentrating on the short-term needs over
the winter.

"The  long-term  needs  of  building up  the  administration  and
infrastructure of Iraq are still being neglected."

THE GUARDIAN, September 18, 1992

FOOD, FUEL AND MEDICINES MUST REACH NORTHERN IRAQ 'BY MID-OCTOBER'

UN REPORT WARNS THAT KURDS COULD STARVE THIS WINTER

Hella Pick in New York

The Kurds in northern Iraq face a winter of "unbearable hardship"
according  to a  confidential United  Nations report.  The report
says  this prospect  can only  be mitigated  if President  Saddam
Hussein  lifts his  embargo on  fuel  supplies for  the area  and
resumes co-operation with international aid agencies.

Renewed   large-scale  displacements   of  Kurds,   as  well   as
malnutrition  and  even  starvation,  are  considered  inevitable
unless the UN can get food, fuel and medicines into northern Iraq
by  mid-October,   the  report  warns.  This   appears  virtually
impossible, since it  would only allow about two  weeks to secure
Baghdad's consent, to  raise the necessary funds, and  to get the
supplies to the area.

The UN  Security Council is  considering a draft  resolution that
would allow  some of Iraq's overseas  assets to be sold  to raise
money for UN  relief operations. However, UN  officials fear that
Baghdad  might retaliate  against  such a  move  by creating  new
obstacles to the UN's relief operations.

The UN report, entitled Winter Survival Plan, a copy of which has
been obtained by the Guardian,  says that it is "imperative" that
the mid-October  deadline should  be met, as  "communications and
transport  activities  within the  area  (of  northern Iraq)  are
limited, and in some cases non-existent".

Urgent  talks  are  under  way after  Mohammed  al-Sahaf,  Iraq's
foreign   minister,   told    Boutros   Boutros-Ghali,   the   UN
secretary-general,  on  Friday  that   Baghdad  was  prepared  to
consider a new relief operation for northern Iraq.

But it is still unclear whether  the aid agencies will be allowed
to operate in  sufficiently large numbers, or to  move freely and
have the protection of enough UN guards.

The US  administration says that aid  will have to be  brought in
through Turkey  if the UN's  negotiations with Iraq fail  to make
rapid progress.  However, Jan Eliasson,  in charge of the  UN aid
operation, is  said to  have expressed strong  reservations about
this  alternative,  arguing  that  the mountain  terrain  on  the
borders of Turkey and northern Iraq make a relief operation along
these routes impracticable.

The UN  report makes it plain  that international aid can  in any
case only  alleviate the  worst hardship  and that  the situation
will ease  if and when Baghdad  "allows the normal flow  of goods
and services to the north to be resumed."

Yet far from any relaxation  of the Iraqi government's conditions
of virtual  siege that  it has imposed  since last  November, the
Winter  Survival  Plan  discloses:  "The  past  few  months  have
witnessed  a further  tightening of  supply restrictions,  making
fuel and  food supplies  difficult or prohibitively  expensive to
obtain." The UN report says that "economic activity in the region
is   virtually  non-existent"   and  that   local  administrative
structures set up by the Kurds  themselves are unable to fill the
void left by  the total withdrawal of  government operations from
northern Iraq.

Since  July, northern  Iraq's two  main cities,  Sulaymaniyah and
Irbil, have  received only 20 per  cent and 16 per  cent of their
food needs respectively.

The UN report  says most people in northern Iraq  do not have the
income for even the "bare necessities" of life.

THE GUARDIAN, September 28, 1992
            _
|-| /-\ |_ |_| |< ("I am a Kurd. You in the West should not see this as a
                   fight between Kurds and Turks. This is a fight between
                   the terrorism and  the Turkish republic."  A  commando
                   officer  fighting  against  the  PKK,  7 October 1992,
                   The Independent)
Xref: sparky soc.culture.turkish:10418 soc.culture.greek:9441