“I know that since last month thousands of PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) members have crossed into Iran,” said Osman Ocalan, who spent 18 years fighting Turkish troops before abandoning the armed struggle in 2004. “At least a thousand crossed into Turkey,” he added. “Only a small number remain in Iraq.”
PKK camps, said Ocalan, are scattered in the remote region where the borders of Iraq, Iran and Turkey meet. “They are constantly moving from one country to the other. They don’t stay long in one place. “The aim is not to offer targets. They know that one should not face the Turks directly, but rather carry out specific guerrilla operations against them.”
http://kurdistanobserver.servehttp.com/Nov-2007/11-11-07-pkk-crossed-into-iran.html
My comment: PKK is infiltrated by operatives from the Iranian Quds Force and they are seeking protection in Iran.
Associated Press
November 30, 2007
KOI-SANJAQ, (Southern Kurdistan) (AP) - There’s word that Kurdish guerrilla fighting for autonomy from Turkey have left Iraqi Kurdistan and returned to their homeland in the past two weeks.
The brother of a guerrilla leader says members of the group known as PKK have been replaced by Iran-based guerrllia.
He said the Kurdish guerrilla were leaving “to ease the burden” on the Kurdistan regional government, which is under pressure from its U.S. supporters, Iraq’s central government and Turkey to move against the PKK forces.
Relations between Iraq and Turkey have grown increasingly strained in recent months over a Turkish threat of a cross-border incursion against the PKK.
http://kurdistanobserver.servehttp.com/Nov-2007/30-11-07-pkk-leaves-skurdistan.html