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Iraqi FM warns Turkey over 'dead serious'
standoff
29.10.2007 |
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October
29, 2007
LONDON, -- Iraq warned Monday that a
full-scale Turkish incursion against Turkey's
Kurdish PKK rebel bases in Kurdistan 'northern Iraq'
would have "disastrous" results and accused Ankara
of being unresponsive to a peaceful resolution of
the crisis.
Describing the increasingly tense situation on the
Turkish-Iraqi border as "dead serious," Iraqi
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Baghdad was
becoming "extremely nervous and worried" at the
Turkish military build-up in the area.
Turkey has threatened a military incursion across
the border against bases belonging to the Turkey's
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been
waging a long-term struggle for self rule in mainly
Kurdish in eastern Turkey.
Zebari said that Turkey "was not responsive" when
Iraqi officials flew to Ankara for talks on how to
resolve the situation. |
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari |
Turkey insists that the
only way to avoid an incursion is for Iraq and the
United States to crack down on the PKK bases on
Iraqi territory.
Zebari also insisted that Turkish demands for
Turkey's PKK leaders in Kurdistan region 'northern
Iraq' to be rounded up and handed over were
unrealistic.
"They are not under our control in fact. They are up
in the mountains, they are armed," he said.
Turkey has in the past engaged in cross-border "hot
pursuit" operations against PKK fighters, but Zebari
said the scenario had shifted dramatically in recent
weeks.
"They are talking about large scale military
incursion which is getting people extremely,
extremely nervous and worried," he said.
Such an assault would have "disastrous consequences"
and meet with stiff Iraqi resistance, he warned.
"That's why the whole government of Iraq and the
whole people of Iraq are united really not to see
their sovereignty, their territorial integrity
undermined by a friendly neighbouring country," he
said.
Ankara had asked Baghdad to submit "concrete
proposals" for dealing with the rebels, but said it
found the Iraqi offers "unsatisfactory," if
"well-intentioned."
Turkey will launch a military operation "when it
deems necessary," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan said Saturday.
Erdogan and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
are to meet here Thursday in a further bid to settle
the crisis through diplomacy.
The culminating point of diplomatic efforts will
likely come on November 5, when Erdogan is scheduled
to meet US President George W. Bush at the White
House.
It will be the first meeting between the two since
Erdogan's governing Justice and Development Party
won snap elections on July 22.
AFP
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