US President George W. Bush on Friday widened sanctions against a Kurdish rebel group and an Italian crime syndicate under a law aimed at punishing international drug traffickers, the White House said.
Bush listed the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has battled Turkish forces for more than a decade and the N’drangheta group of Italy’s Calabria region under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act.
While Washington — like Turkey, and much of the international community — already listed the PKK as a terrorist group, the move under the 1999 law expanded the US ability to target the organization, a spokesman said.
“We also now have the authority to target and designate other PKK entities and associates for narcotics activity. Before we were limited to this group’s terror activities,” national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
The PKK has been fighting for self-rule in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives. In recent months, with US help, Turkey has targeted the PKK in northern Iraq.
Bush also listed a Mexican drug-lord and his cartel; Cumhur Yakut, a Turk suspected in large-scale heroin trafficking; a Colombian; and an Afghan under the law, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement.
The law denies people thus designated from any access to the US financial system and bars all US nationals and US firms from doing business with them, Perino said.
Bush also took aim at Hermagoras Gonzales Polanco, accused in US courts of shipping cocaine to the US, and whom Colombian authorities charge has links to paramilitary groups. He was arrested in March in Venezuela.
Another target was Marcos Arturo Beltan Leyva and his family-run Beltran Levya organization, one of the three major drug-smuggling groups that dominate the trade in Mexico.
Also included was N’drangheta, whose revenues reportedly come principally from drugs, arms smuggling and prostitution.
Haji Asad Khan Zarkari Mohammadhasni of Afghanistan was also added, bringing to 75 the total number of individuals and entities listed under the law.
“This action underscores the president’s determination to do everything possible to pursue drug traffickers, undermine their operations and end the suffering that trade in illicit drugs inflicts on Americans and other people around the world, as well as prevent drug traffickers from supporting terrorists,” Perino said.
“We appreciate the support and cooperation often provided by host governments in making these designations and this year in particular, the government of Italy with respect to the N’drangheta Organization,” she said.
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