Kurdish Guerrillas Release 8 Turks
Rebels Take 'Step Toward Peace'

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 5, 2007

BAGHDAD, Nov. 4 -- Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq on Sunday freed eight Turkish soldiers captured during a cross-border ambush last month.

The guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, had been under international pressure to release the soldiers before President Bush's scheduled meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday in Washington.

Turkey has massed an estimated 100,000 troops on the border, and some observers had feared that the country would invade northern Iraq if the soldiers were not freed. Turkish officials have faced intense domestic pressure to launch a military offensive to stop the PKK, which Turkey, the United States and other countries have designated a terrorist group.

A PKK spokesman, Abdul Rahman al-Chaderchi, said the group released the soldiers in Iraq about 7 a.m. in order "to stop deepening the war, violence and bloodshed, and also to make a step toward peace." He said the PKK was also motivated by humanitarian reasons and a desire to respond to "demands from the different sides like the European Union, Kurdish regional government, Iraq's government and the U.S. government."

The PKK, whose stated goal is to create an independent Kurdish state out of parts of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, sparked an international crisis when it ambushed the Turkish soldiers, killing 12 and capturing the eight released on Sunday.

The United States has been caught in the middle of the standoff, condemning the attacks on Turkey, one of the closest U.S. allies in the Muslim world, but also warning Turkey against attacks in Iraq, which could further destabilize an already violence-ridden country. The U.S. military continued to play the middleman Sunday, receiving the soldiers from Iraqi officials and then transferring them to Turkish custody, according to State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

"We applaud the efforts of the Government of Iraq to secure the release of the hostages," McCormack said in a statement. "We urge continued, deepened and immediate cooperation between Iraq and Turkey in combating the PKK, which is a common enemy of Turkey, Iraq and the United States."

Violence continued to plague Iraq on Sunday, with at least 33 people killed or found dead across the country, according to an Interior Ministry official.

In Baghdad, gunmen killed an adviser to the finance minister as he left for work, the Interior Ministry official said. In Tikrit, north of the capital, a car bomb exploded during afternoon rush hour, killing three people and wounding 18, police said.

Iraqi officials said the body of a U.S. soldier kidnapped in May was found in a suburb in Babil province, south of Baghdad. Babil police captain Muthanna Ahmad said the body, which was significantly decayed, was identified because it was in an American uniform.

The U.S. military denied the Iraqi reports that the body was that of either Spec. Alex R. Jimenez, 25, or Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, 19, who have been missing since they were ambushed on May 12. Four other soldiers and an Iraqi army interpreter were killed in the incident.

"As far as we are concerned, there is no truth to these reports," said Maj. Brad Leighton, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. "We're still looking for any bit of intelligence that will help us find them. But right now, they are still missing."

Staff writer Karen DeYoung in Jerusalem, special correspondent Dlovan Brwari in Irbil and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.