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ANKARA, (AFP) - Turkey said Saturday that
people wounded in a suicide bombing in the northern
Iraqi city of Arbil earlier this week would be flown
to Ankara for treatment, in a gesture of good will
to the Iraqi Kurds with whom ties have often been
stormy.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that 21
people who were injured in Thursday's attack at a
police recruitment center in Arbil were to be flown
to Ankara later Saturday on a special plane
dispatched by the Turkish government.
Ankara offered to treat the victims shortly after
the bombing, which claimed at least 46 lives and
left 71 people injured.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul made the offer in a
telephone call to Massoud Barzani, the head of the
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) which controls
Arbil.
Turkey's initiative is an indication of its
"readiness to extend a helping hand to the friendly
and brotherly Iraqi people in every possible
field... and its detrmination to stand by the Iraqis
in their times of hardship," the statement said.
Turkish suspicions that the Kurds in neighboring
northern Iraq are plotting to break away from
Baghdad in the wake of Saddam Hussein's ouster have
often poisoned bilateral relations.
AFP
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