Kurdish Rebels Pull Out of Turkey

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ISTANBUL—Kurdish rebels began withdrawing from Turkey to their stronghold in northern Iraq on Wednesday, the latest step in the six-month bid to end a three-decades long conflict that has left tens of thousands dead.

Officials from Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, said some of the estimated 2,000 armed militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, based in Turkey, had already begun moving through mountainous terrain to the Iraqi border. The withdrawal, ordered last month by the PKK's top commander Murat Karayilan, could take as long as three months with most militants moving in nighttime hours to ensure safety in areas with a large military presence, Kurdish officials said.

"Information we have received from the ground confirms that the withdrawal has started," said Gultan Kisinak, co-chair of the BDP, adding that the process had started peacefully, without interference from Turkish security forces. "By the end of June, they will have proceeded to an extent that will satisfy the public," she added.

Turkey's government cautiously welcomed the news, stressing that it would be monitoring the process closely and would make a fuller statement when it saw more tangible evidence of the withdrawal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323744604578470833747489270.html

[William deB. Mills]

1. A Ray of Hope in the Mideast

In general, the Mideast seems headed for serious instability - internal conflict in Iraq, Israel still pushing for war against Iran, Syria collapsing it seems and certainly infecting its neighbors with the virus of war. One of the real question marks in all this is whether or not the Kurds can find an acceptable place in a hostile region without fighting.

Since the Kurds live in Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, a nationalist Kurdish uprising could tip the whole region into war. But now the Erdogan-Ocalan deal offers the possibility of a way out. The road is fraught with problems - Baghdad has already expressed hostility to the arrival of the battle-hardened Kurdish militiamen from Turkey, as well it might considering that Baghdad itself is in the process of conducting military moves against Iraqi Kurds. Baghdad also seems hostile to the arrival of Syrian Kurdish refugees, suggesting its bottom line is ethnic, and that is bad news for Iraqi unity. A key question is whether Tehran will see cooperation between Kurdistan and Turkey as an economic opportunity for itself or will see it more as a threat to stability in Kurdish areas of Iran. Tehran's guidance may be critical to Baghdad's final attitude toward what now appears to be the rising prospects of Iraqi and Turkish Kurds.

Another critical issue is the degree to which Erdogan will follow through with social and legal reforms to enable Turkish Kurds to become full-fledged citizens.

The Kurds will be lucky to pull off a peaceful solution in the context of raging regional violence, but if they do, might we see Erdogan and Ocalan getting Nobel peace prizes?

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2. Exactly. nt