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BAGHDAD - A team of Iraqi political and
religious leaders delayed travelling to Najaf on
Tuesday to seek a peaceful solution to fierce
fighting in the city, citing security fears. “We
received reports that there would be ambushes on the
way to Najaf targeting the delegation,” said Fawzi
Hamza, an independent politician leading the team.
He said the mission had not been cancelled, adding
he could not say when the team would leave for
security reasons. It will urge radical Shi’ite
cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr to stop fighting US forces
and leave a sacred shrine where he is holed up.
Turkey call
Meanwhile, Turkey called on Iraq to clamp down on
armed Turkish Kurd rebels who have sought refuge
across the border, as visiting Iraqi President Ghazi
al-Yawar warned Ankara against interfering in its
internal affairs.
Turkey says thousands of rebels from the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), recently renamed
KONGRA-GEL, have holed up in mountainous northern
Iraq since 1999 when the group began observing a
unilateral truce in its bloody campaign for
self-rule in southeastern Turkey.
The rebels are now believed to be infiltrating back
into Turkey after the group cancelled the truce in
June, warning foreigners and investors to stay away.
“I told President Yawar that we expected to end the
presence of PKK/KONGRA-GEL in Iraq at once and to
ensure that the new Iraq does not give shelter to
terrorist organizations,” Turkish President Ahmet
Necdet Sezer told a press conference after talks
with the Iraqi leader.
Yawar for his part expressed Baghdad’s readiness to
combat the rebels.
“We cannot ... turn a blind eye to a formation which
endangers the security of our neighbours,” he said.
But he added that Baghdad would like to develop its
ties with Turkey in the framework of “good
neighbourly relations without any intervention in
internal affairs”.
Sezer also urged Baghdad to prevent Iraqi Kurds from
taking sole control of the ethnically volatile
northern city of Kirkuk, saying unrest in the
oil-rich region would harm stability.
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