To enter Turkey you need a valid passport good for at least six months. A visa is required for U.S. nationals. Visas for three months are available for US$20 and will be given on entry. Getting to Turkey's Kurdish areas means either a long bus journey or a short plane ride to Diyarbakir in the southeast. From there you will be able to travel around depending on the whim of the local police or military commanders.
Entry to northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan) is next to impossible without some kind of covert contact in the region. Even DP staffers have a hard time. Roddy Scott was tossed out in 1997 and 1998. Turkey has closed the border to aid workers and journalists-though they may be reopening it in 1999. Yeah, some chance! Hacks planning a tour of southeastern Turkey should-to avoid tedious hours of questioning by the police-direct inquiries to:
General Directorate of Press and Information
Office of the Prime Minister
56 Konur Sokak
Ankara, Turkey
Tel.: (312) 417-6311
Alternatively, you can go for the full-blown undercover tour. This involves a very good taxi driver who knows the game and the checkpoints as well as just about everything else. If you get spotted, though, expect even more hours of tedious questioning as well as losing all your film.
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