What do you make of this? Why are they bringing this up..now?

[truthpusher]

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=September&x=20060927173224MVyelwarC6.582278e-02&chanlid=eur

27 September 2006

U.S. Envoy Says He Will Not Meet with Kurdish Terrorist Group
Joseph Ralston says he wants to make Americans more aware of PKK problem

By Vince Crawley
Washington File Staff Writer



Washington -- The U.S. special envoy for countering the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) says he will not meet with the terrorist organization, active in Turkey and Iraq, and that he wants to make Americans more aware of the PKK’s deadly acts.

“We don’t meet with terrorists. We don’t negotiate with terrorists. We don’t cooperate with terrorists,” retired Air Force General Joseph W. Ralston told reporters September 27 in Washington. “I am not going to meet with the PKK.”

An estimated 30,000 people in Turkey have been killed in PKK-related violence over the past 22 years, including 500 deaths since the beginning of 2006, according to the U.S. State Department.

The PKK’s goal is to establish an independent Kurdish state in traditional Kurdish lands, which include mountainous regions in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq, as well as parts of Iran and Syria. Approximately 4,000 to 5,000 people, primarily Turkish Kurds, are believed to belong to the PKK, which formally changed its name to Kongra-Gel in 2003. A majority of its members – between 3,000 and 3,500 -- are operating out of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, according to the State Department’s 2005 Country Reports on Terrorism. (See related article.)

In recent months, the United States increasingly has urged Turkey’s government not to attack PKK targets in northern Iraq for fear of further destabilizing the political situation there. The State Department on August 28 announced that President Bush had appointed Ralston as the special U.S. envoy for countering the PKK. Before retiring from the U.S. Air Force, Ralston served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe. (See related article.)

In his news conference, Ralston said there has been confusion in Turkish news reports about his role as U.S. envoy. He stressed that he is not a “coordinator” and will not act as an intermediary between the PKK and the Turkish government. Instead, Ralston said, he is meeting with top-level officials in Turkey and Iraq to help develop a strategy for dealing with the terrorist group.

[lala_rawraw]

1. google MEK

[NNN0LHI]

2. This is an attempt to head off a planned invasion of N. Iraq by Turkey

I don't think it is going to work.

Don