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U.N. refugee chief warns of refugee crisis
in Iraqi Kurdistan over Turkish threat
16.10.2007 |
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October
16, 2007
BRUSSELS,-- The U.N.'s refugee chief warned
on Tuesday of the danger of a refugee crisis in
Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, a day after
Turkey's cabinet asked parliament for permission to
launch an attack there against Kurdish PKK
separatists.
"The northern governorate, or Kurdistan ... has been
the most stable area of Iraq," United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told
reporters in Brussels. "It is an area also where you
find Iraqis from the south and central Iraq who came
seeking security.
"I can only express our very deep concern about any
development that might lead to meaningful
displacements of population in that sensitive area,"
Guterres said.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said securing
parliament's permission for the operations against
Kurds, who use Iraqi bases for attacks inside
Turkey, did not necessarily mean actions were
imminent.
"I sincerely wish that this motion will never be
applied," he said.
Parliament is expected to pass the motion on Monday
allowing cross-border operations over a year.
More than 37,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas have been killed since 1984 when the PKK
took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly
Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
Reuters
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