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The Yeşilova incident refers to an armed stand off that took place in April 1991 between the British Royal Marines and the Turkish Armed Forces at refugee camps for Kurds and Assyrians in Yeşilova (also seen spelled Yasilova), a small town in Turkey located 25 kilometers west of Iran.
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In March 1991, with the end of hostilities between Coalition forces and the Iraqi military, then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sought to quash the rising Shiite and Kurdish insurgents who were rebelling against his regime. Saddam managed to put down the rebellions with little resistance but continued to persecute the Kurds in northern Iraq. Consequently, thousands of Kurdish civilians were displaced, most of them finding shelter in refugee camps in Turkey. Though the coalition forces chose not intervene, they did launch a massive humanitarian relief effort to at least help alleviate their plight.
The British Marines were tasked with distributing relief supplies to 3,000 Kurds and Assyrians in Yeşilova under the Turkish military's auspices but found themselves in direct confrontation with the Turks themselves. The Turkish soldiers, instead of cooperating with the British Marines in the relief distribution, were stealing blankets, bed linen, flour and food, including sixty boxes of water, intended for the refugees, forcing the Marines were forced to intervene.[1] British forces asked to transport the refugees out of the country but the Turkish commander refused to grant this request. The Marines were thus forced to pile the supplies back into their helicopters to prevent further pillaging but also faced a possible firefight against the Turkish forces. On April 29, a detachment of diplomatic officials and CIA agents attached to the United States Embassy in Ankara arrived in Yeşilova to help defuse the situation. They found that various diseases, including cases of acute diarrhea and cholera, had spread amongst the civilians in the camp and that the refugees were deprived of medical services by the Turkish military.[2]
British journalist Robert Fisk, the only reporter present in Yeşilova filed an article for the newspaper The Independent on April 30 from Diyarbakır, describing the confrontation between the Royal Marines and the Turkish soldiers' actions in the camp. Fisk's report incensed Turkish authorities, who detained him in Diyarbakır.[3] He was interrogated but eventually released and expelled from Turkey. Fisk speculated that charges were being prepared by the governor of Diyarbakır for "defaming" the Turkish military and later described the interrogation session as "pathetic and frightening."[4]
The European Commission and numerous journalists protested and demanded an explanation from the Turkish government.[5] Turkey's foreign ministry and the army's Chief of Staff, General Doğan Güreş, denounced Fisk's article, claiming it was "planned, programmed propaganda."[5]