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Iraqi Kurdistan parliament meets to debate
Turkish threats
30.10.2007 |
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October
30, 2007
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region 'Iraq',--
The Iraqi Kurdistan Region parliament will hold a
closed session on Tuesday in the presence of
President Massoud Barzani to debate Turkish threats
of an incursion into Kurdistan 'northern Iraq' to
hunt down fighters of the Turkey's Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK), the parliament's media advisor said.
"The decision to convene this session was taken by
Kurdish leaders after the return of the Iraqi
delegation that visited Turkey late last week,"
Tareq Jawhar said.
Areas parallel to the Iraqi Kurdistan-Turkish border
strip occasionally come under heavy artillery fire.
The Turkish army alleges that fighters of the PKK,
which opposes Ankara, have been using northern Iraq
territories as springboard to their activities.
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The Iraqi Kurdistan region parliament in the capital
city of Erbil |
The Iraqi Kurdistan parliament, chaired by Dr. Adnan
al-Mufti, is composed of two main groups: the Green
Bloc of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which has 44 out of a
total 111 seats, and Iraqi Kurdistan President
Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which
also has 44 seats, in addition to other blocs and
parties.
The crisis on the Iraqi-Turkish borders
unprecedentedly flared up during the past couple of
weeks after the Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
which is outlawed in Turkey, escalated operations
against Turkish forces. Fighters of the PKK, holed
up in mountainous areas in northern Iraq, had
killed, wounded and captured more than 40 Turkish
soldiers lately.
After the PKK escalations, the Turkish government
received the thumbs up from parliament to carry out
a military operation against the PKK inside Iraqi
Kurdistan region territories.
Since 1984 the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the
country's mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
Iraqi Kurdistan president Massud Barzani urged
direct talks with Turkey Sunday, but Ankara has
already said it will only speak with the Baghdad
government.
www.ekurd.net
"Let us sit down together to resolve the Kurdish
question," Barzani told AFP. "I am not an enemy of
Turkey, but I do not accept the language of force."
Turkey rejects direct talks with Iraqi Kurdistan
government, Officially, Turkey does not recognise
the regional government of Kurdistan led by
president Massoud Barzani.
Ankara has never, and still does not, recognize the
KRG and refuses to meet with its representatives in
any official capacity. That reflects Ankara's fear
that any international respect shown to the
autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region would only
embolden Turkey's own Kurdish minority to seek
similar home-rule status.
VOI | AFP
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