Ambassador: Kurd terrorists have U.S. arms

WASHINGTON, July 11 (UPI) -- Kurdish terrorists in northern Iraq are using U.S.-made arms and explosives to attack Turkish forces and citizens, the Turkish ambassador said Wednesday.

"From terrorists captured within Turkey we know that certain weapons are of foreign origins. The explosive are sophisticated enough for us to suggest forces in the north are getting them from certain foreign groups," Ambassador Nabi Sensoy told defense reporters in Washington. "We know there have been a number of weapons of American origins.

"It doesn't mean the United States has supplied them, not necessarily. ... We know the USA is shipping arms to the northern Iraq administration. It is just possible they are ending up in the hands of terrorist organizations."

Fighters with the PKK -- the Kurdish Workers Party -- have killed 30,000 Turks since 1984, he said. He estimates the group, which is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations but not the Iraqi government's list, is 5,000 strong, with 3,800 to 4,000 of them living in camps in the border areas. Their numbers swelled, he said, during the 10-year enforcement of the no-fly zone, in which U.S. forces prevented Saddam Hussein's regime from entering the Kurdish area in northern Iraq.

Snesoy said the Kurdish regional government led by Massoud Barzani is actively supporting the KPP with food, ammunition, weapons and logistics support.

With Turkey's national elections looming, Ankara is talking tough about KPP and has warned that Turkish troops are massing along the border.

"We've come to the point where everyone feels patience in Turkey is running out.

"If the U.S. government and administration feels itself to have the right to intervene in Iraq ... then Turkey should be able to protect its people and country from the threat and actual acts of terrorist organization at our doorstep," he said.