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ANKARA, Dec 2 (AFP)
- 11h16 - Turkey is to reopen a consulate in Mosul,
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in Ankara on
Friday, describing the Kurdish-dominated area around
the northern Iraqi town as a Turkish "hinterland."
"Northern Iraq is an area of interest for Turkey,
it's our hinterland," he told the Aksam newspaper.
Stressing that maintaining Iraq's territorial
integrity was a top priority for Turkey, Gul said
that the success of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan was
in large part due to Ankara's contribution.
"Turkey cannot be marginalised there," he said.
Gul gave no date for the opening of the Mosul
consulate, but said it would be headed by Huseyin
Avni Botsali, an official from the ministry's Middle
East desk.
Turkey already has an embassy in Baghdad.
Ankara is worried that the region would be
destabilised if Iraqi Kurdistan, which lies next to
Turkey, became fully independent.
Until US troops arrived in 2003, the Turkish army
frequently mounted raids into northern Iraq to chase
Kurdish separatist rebels.
AFP
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