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Turkish prime minister warns Iraqi Kurds
against seeking control of oil-rich Kirkuk 16.1.2007 |
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ANKARA, January
16, -- Turkey's prime minister warned Iraqi Kurdish
groups Tuesday against trying to seize control of
the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Kurdish lawmakers
responded by accusing Ankara of interfering in
internal Iraqi matters.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey will
not stand by amid growing tensions among ethnic
Turkmens, Arabs and Kurds in Iraq's oil-rich north.
Turkish lawmakers are to discuss Kirkuk and Iraq on
Thursday, and Turkey's main opposition party has
said it would back a cross-border offensive to quell
a Kurdish rebellion.
Iraqi Kurds, who claim the region as their own and
hope to eventually include Kirkuk in an enclave of
self-rule in northern Iraq, responded by accusing
Turkey of interfering in Iraqi internal affairs. |
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish Prime Minister |
Kurdish legislators in Iraq's parliament "condemn
this interference in Iraqi affairs by the Turkish
government (and) ... call upon parliament to issue a
statement condemning them as well," they said in a
statement Tuesday.
Kurdish lawmakers urged parliament to "call upon the
Iraqi government and the Foreign Ministry to take a
decisive stance to stop this interference, and to
threaten to cut political and the economic relations
with Turkey in case Turkey keeps its interference."
Turkey fears Iraq's Kurds want Kirkuk's lucrative
oil to fund a bid for independence that could
encourage separatist Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey
who have been fighting since 1984 for autonomy.
Erdogan chided an Iraqi Kurdish group for denouncing
an Ankara conference on Kirkuk's future, saying
Turkey "cannot digest their words" and cannot stand
such criticism, recalling how Turkey sheltered more
than 500,000 Iraqi Kurdish refugees who escaped the
Iraqi army's bombardment following a failed Kurdish
insurgency in early 1991.
Erdogan reminded Kurds of his country's historical
and ethnic ties to the region.
"Turkey did not remain indifferent to the plight of
Kurdish Peshmergas who were escaping oppression and
death," he said. "Today, it will not remain
indifferent to the Turkmens, Arabs ... in Kirkuk."
Kirkuk, an ancient city that once was part of the
Ottoman Empire, has a large minority of ethnic Turks
as well as Christians, Shiite and Sunni Arabs,
Armenians and Assyrians.
The former Iraqi president Saddam Huseein forced about 250,000
Kurdish residents to give up their homes to Arabs in
the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city and the region's
oil industry. .
Kirkuk lies just south of the autonomous Kurdish
region stretching across Iraq's northeast. Kurdistan
leaders want to annex the city, and Iraq's
constitution calls for a referendum on the issue by
the end of this year.
U.S. legislators have warned that Kirkuk is a
"powder keg" and have recommended that the
referendum be delayed.
In December 2006, Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar
Zebari, warned Turkey not to meddle in "our Kirkuk.",
"You speak of Kirkuk as if it were a Turkish city,"
Zebari, an ethnic Kurd, told Turkish leaders. "These are
matters for Iraq to decide."
AP
Kirkuk city lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region and it is not under the full
control of Kurdistan Regional Government
administration.
A referendum is to be held in late 2007 to decide
whether the oil-rich Kurdish province should be
annexed to the safe semiautonomous Kurdistan region
in Iraq's north.
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