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Bush aims sanctions at PKK and Italian crime groups


    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday imposed sanctions on Kurdish rebels and an Italian organized crime group in an attempt to cut off their access to the U.S. financial system and their funding.

    Using a U.S. anti-drug trafficking law, Bush designated theKurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, and the 'NdranghetaOrganization subject to the sanctions, which prevent U.S.companies and individuals from engaging in trade andtransactions with them.

    "This action underscores the president's determination todo everything possible to pursue drug traffickers, underminetheir operations and end the suffering that trade in illicitdrugs inflicts on Americans and other people around the world,as well as prevent drug traffickers from supportingterrorists," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in astatement.

    The PKK has used a remote part of Iraq's largely autonomousregion of Kurdistan as a base to stage attacks inside Turkey inpursuit of its goal of a Kurdish homeland in southeasternTurkey.

    The Turkish military this year has regularly crossed theborder into northern Iraq to attack PKK forces.

    Crime experts say the Italian crime group subject to thesanctions by Bush, 'Ndrangheta, overtook the Sicilian Mafia inthe 1990s as Italy's largest drug trafficking group and hassince spread throughout Europe and beyond.

    Bush also named four foreign individuals and two otherforeign entities as subject to the sanctions, including afaction of the Sinaloa, Mexico, drug trafficking cartel headedby the Beltran Leyva brothers. Marcos Arturo Beltran Leyva wasspecifically named on the White House sanctions list.

    Media reports in Mexico have said a spike in drug violencein Sinaloa state this year, with some 300 people killed, couldbe the result a fracture between reputed cartel chief JoaquinGuzman, who is Mexico's most wanted man, and Beltran Leyva, oneof his boldest operatives.

    The Beltran Leyva family was widely thought to beresponsible for the killing of Guzman's son in a military-styleattack on May 8.

    President Felipe Calderon has launched a crackdown onMexico's drug cartels, and the effort has prompted a rash ofretaliatory killings of federal police.

    The others that Bush added to the sanctions list include:Haji Asad Khan Zarkari Mohammadhasni of Afghanistan, HermagorasGonzalez Polanco of Venezuela and Cumhur Yakut of Turkey.

    Previously there were 68 individuals and entities subjectto the sanctions under the Foreign Narcotics KingpinDesignation Act, which became law in December 1999, accordingto the White House.

    (Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky, editing by David Alexander)