In what has been regarded as a goodwill gesture, Iran has extradited Kurdish insurgents to Turkey.
| "For us? Oh, thank you! You shouldn't have!" |
Turkish security sources said Iran has sent two detained members of the Kurdish Workers Party to Turkey. The two were wanted insurgents who had sought refuge in Iran. The Iranian decision was said to have come as a result of years of pressure by Turkey for security cooperation regarding the PKK. Iran has been harboring more than 1,000 PKK and other Turkish fugitives over the last five years. The sources said they did not know whether Iran would extradite additional PKK members to Turkey. They said so far Syria, another Turkish neighbor and Iran’s leading ally, has extradited 39 fugitive insurgents to Turkey over the last few months.
Keep in mind that the Istanboom al-Qaeda fled to Iran after the attacks and have yet to be found. Iran wants to calm Turkey down, but it also wants to stay in the terrorism business, at least with regard to al-Qaeda, now that the PKK is pretty much a spent force. So tossing a few Kurdish Marxists every now and again would seem to be the best way to keep Ankara calm and buy the ayatollahs more time. |