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Turkey drops plans to invade
Kurdistan-Iraq
8.8.2006
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ANKARA - Turkey
has decided to withdraw its threat to invade
Kurdistan (Northern Iraq).
Officials said the government of Prime Minister
Recep Erdogan has determined that Iraq and the
United States would help eliminate Kurdish Workers
Party strongholds in Kurdistan (northern Iraq). They
said Erdogan received two phone calls from U.S.
President George Bush that pledged to block the flow
of PKK fighters from Iraq to Turkey.
In Washington, the Bush administration confirmed
that Turkey was no longer threatening to attack
Iraqi Kurdistan. Officials said Iraq has agreed to
cooperate with Turkey to end the PKK threat, Middle
East Newsline reported. "The Iraqi government has
begun to take steps and we are following them,"
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Aug. 2.
Erdogan did not elaborate. But officials said Iraq
has started to share intelligence on the PKK
presence with the Turkish military and Interior
Ministry.
"Iraq has recently given us information about the
measures it foresees to stop the activities of the
PKK organization in Iraq," Turkish Foreign Ministry
spokesman Namik Tan said. "We expect these measures
to produce concrete results very soon."
Over the last week, Iraqi officials held talks in
Ankara regarding ways to eliminate the PKK threat.
They said Iraqi officials discussed with their
Turkish counterparts a plan to restrict PKK
movements and end military activities along the
Turkish border.
Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani has met PKK
commander Murat Karayilan to discuss insurgency
activities.
CNN Turk television reported that Barzani told
Karayilan not to use Kurdistan (northern Iraq) as a
base to attack Turkey. "These are activities that
are carried out in certain secrecy, within a program
and timing," Tan said.
"The struggle [against the PKK] will continue, and
at the end of the day, the PKK will definitely be
defeated. We will see this very clearly, very soon."
"I don't think that's what people are talking about
right now," State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack said. "What people are talking about is
how to work together to solve the [PKK] problem. So
you don't have the Turkish government talking about
launching attacks into Kurdistan (Iraq). Everybody
wants to find a solution to the problem."
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than
37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK took up arms
for Kurdish self-rule in southeast of Turkey.
worldtribune com
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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