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FBI committed to help Turkey against
Kurdish rebels
10.12.2005
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ANKARA, Dec 9 (AFP)
- 17h28 - The US Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) is committed to cooperating with Turkey in its
fight against armed rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK), FBI director Robert Mueller
said here Friday.
"We are working with our counterparts elsewhere in
Europe and in Turkey to address the PKK and work
cooperatively, to find and cut off financing to
terrorist groups, be it PKK, Al-Qaeda" or others,
Mueller told reporters.
"There have been concrete results and there will
continue to be concrete results around the world, in
Europe and elsewhere," he added.
Mueller spoke after a day of talks with senior
Turkish police and national intelligence officials,
which he said served to stengthen bilateral ties and
enable the two countries to cooperate in facing
terrorist threats.
Turkish security forces have been locked in a bitter
combat with the PKK since the group, listed as a
terrorist organization by the European Union, Turkey
and the United States, took up arms in 1984 for
self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast.
The conflict has claimed some 37,000 lives since.
Thousands of militants have found refuge in the
mountains of northern Iraq since 1999 and have
recently begun infiltrating back into Turkey,
stepping up anti-government attacks in the southeast
since early this year.
Turkey has long criticised the United States for
failing to curb the rebels and even threatened cross
border operations into Iraq if the threat is not
eliminated.
Washington has been leery of committing itself to
military action, arguing instead for means to dry up
the group's financial resources.
AFP
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