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U.S. will help Turks stop Kurdish inroads
from Iraq
26.4.2006
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ANKARA, Turkey,
April 25 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
assured Turkish leaders today that the United States
would step up efforts to stop the infiltration of
Kurdish insurgents from Iraq into Turkey, but she
cautioned the Turkish government not to send troops
into Iraq to do the job.
Addressing what has become a new irritant in
relations with Turkey, Ms. Rice acknowledged that
the problem of infiltration by Kurdish rebels into
Turkey from Kurdish regions in northern Iraq had
been allowed to grow. The Turkish foreign minister,
Abdullah Gül, said there had been a surge in such
infiltration in recent weeks.
The Turkish media has been filled with reports of
thousands of Turkish troops massing on the border of
Iraq, and there has been speculation that Turkey
might intervene in Iraq. Ms. Rice, without speaking
directly to that threat, clearly sought to
discourage the Turks from doing anything on their
own. |
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Photo: White House |
"Of course we want anything that we do to contribute
to stability in Iraq, not to threaten that stability
or to make a difficult situation worse," Ms. Rice
said, referring to the Turkish troop presence. "That
is why a cooperative approach on this problem —
cooperation between Iraqi and Turkey and the
coalition forces — is very important."
Mr. Gül spoke of the Kurdish rebel situation in
blunt terms, saying that the Kurdish Workers Party,
which is known as the P.K.K., had turned Iraq into
"a training ground" and that "like every country,
Turkey will take her own precautions" to deal with
the problem.
He said, however, that Turkey had "no claim on
anybody's soil or any neighborly country's soil."
Ms. Rice spoke on a swing through the region,
starting in the morning with meetings in Athens,
where a few thousand anti-American protesters
thronged the streets downtown. Perhaps a couple of
dozen demonstrators turned violent, throwing Molotov
cocktails and burning storefronts and bus stops.
In Greece, Ms. Rice sought to win Greek approval of
a Security Council action increasing pressure on
Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities
that are believed in the West to be a cover for a
nuclear weapons program. Iran says it is developing
civilian nuclear power.
Greece is currently a member of the Security
Council, and the Greek foreign minister, Theodora
Bakoyannis, expressed solidarity with the American
objective of stopping Iran's suspected nuclear
weapons program but hinted that she did not think
the time was right for acting at the Security
Council.
"We are in the middle of a diplomatic effort, a
diplomatic effort which still has some tools to use
in order to become effective," she said.
Outside the meeting, the demonstrators were
protesting possible American military strikes
against Iran, and inside Ms. Rice was asked by a
Greek journalist whether the United States would
seek the use of military bases or facilities in
Greece for any military intervention against the
Iranian government.
The question and the protesters suggested that the
United States has to contend in Europe with reports
of possible military actions and the fallout of the
Iraq war.
"Let me go right to the crux of the question," Ms.
Rice said. "The United States of America understands
and believes that Iran is not Iraq." At another
point she said: "I most certainly did not raise
facilities for anything because that's not on the
agenda."
In Turkey, Ms. Rice said she appreciated in general
Turkey's support for the troubled efforts in recent
months to get a nationally unified government in
Iraq. Turkey is especially fearful of a breakup of
Iraq because it is concerned that Iraq's Kurdish
population in the north could help foment a Kurdish
rebellion on Turkish soil.
Ms. Rice said the United States would help suppress
Kurdish infiltration into Turkey by sharing
intelligence information with the Turkish
government.
"We believe that it is important that we make a
joint effort through information sharing and other
means to prevent any vacuum from being used as a way
to inflict harm here in Turkey," she said, referring
to the situation in northern Iraq in which a lack of
American and Iraqi forces may have contributed to
the problem.
"We had a trilateral mechanism to work on this
issue, and I hope that we can reinvigorate it when
there is a new Iraqi government," she said.
NY Times.com
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