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US's Rice to urge Turkey to avoid strike
in Iraqi Kurdistan
2.11.2007
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November 2, 2007
SHANNON, Ireland, Nov 2, 2007,-- US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday she would
ask Turkey not to destabilise Kurdistan' northern
Iraq' by launching a cross-border military strike
against Turkey's Kurdish PKK rebels there.
"Anything that would destabilise the North of Iraq
is not going to be in Turkey's interest," Rice said
before a stopover in Ireland on her way to Ankara
for talks with Turkish leaders and to attend a
ministerial conference of Iraq's neighbours and
major Western powers in Istanbul on Friday and
Saturday. |
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice |
"It is not going to be in our interest. It is not
going to be in Iraq's interest. So that has been the
reason for urging restraint," she told journalists
on her plane.
Rice is to meet Turkish President Abdullah Gul,
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign
Minister Ali Babacan on Friday afternoon.
"The first point that we have to underscore is that
Turkey, the United States and Iraq have a common
enemy in the PKK," she said, referring to the
Turkey's Kurdish PKK rebel movement.
Turkey accuses the regional Kurdistan government in
northern Iraq of harbouring and aiding fighters from
the Turkey's separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Kurdish authorities in Kurdistan region strongly
denies the claim.
Both Baghdad and Washington strongly oppose any
unilateral Turkish action in Kurdistan 'northern
Iraq' on the grounds that it would destabilise the
only relatively calm region of the war-torn country.
The PKK uses bases in the Kurdistani mountainous
region for cross-border attacks as part of its
23-year campaign for self-rule in Turkey's mainly
Kurdish southeast.
"PKK members are present in the Kurdistan region but
the regional government is preventing them from
carrying out any attacks against Turkish targets,"
senior Kurdish politician Mahmud Othman said
earlier. www.ekurd.net
"We want to develop a very effective strategy for
dealing with this threat," said Rice. "But we are
not going to be able to do
this without coordination of the three."
She said that the three-party panel she set up more
than a year ago to help ease tensions between Turkey
and Iraq had been "enhanced", implicitly
acknowledging that it had been ineffective.
"So effective action means action that can deal with
the threat but is not going to make the situation
worse," she said.
Rice said she asked Iraqi Kurdistan president Massud
Barzani in a telephone conversation last week to
distance himself from the PKK.
"I made the very clear point that the KRG (Kurdish
Regional Government) needs to separate istelf from
the PKK in a very clear rhetorical way and he
assured me that they have no intention of harboring
the PKK, no intention of trying to do anything but
rule out terrorism in North Iraq."
Turkey has reportedly massed up to 100,000 troops on
the border with Iraq and has threatened a military
incursion to strike at the PKK bases unless Baghdad
and Washington make good on promises to crack down
on the rebels.
The White House has offered Ankara "actionable
intelligence" on the PKK.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki arrived
in Ankara on Thursday night to meet Turkish
counterpart Babacan, one day after Baghdad appealed
for Tehran's help to defuse the crisis.
Rice, Mottaki, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki are all
scheduled to attend the ministerial conference of
Iraq's neighbours and major Western powers in
Istanbul on Friday and Saturday.
"I know that the Iraqis have some ideas that they
are bringing to the table. I hope we can, with the
Turks, help to sort those out, to marry those ideas
with the appropriate assets that we and others might
be able to bring," said Rice.
"We have no time to lose. All instruments --
diplomatic, political, socio-cultural and military
-- are on the table," Babacan said, adding that
Ankara might opt to
restrict flights
to Kurdistan region 'northern Iraq'. www.ekurd.net
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan is also to meet with
US President George W. Bush in Washington on Monday.
Ankara on Thursday stepped up pressure on Kurdish
rebels with
economic sanctions.
Turkish troops have been engaged in major operations
targeting the PKK since October 21 when a group of
rebels, who Ankara says infiltrated from northern
Iraq, ambushed a military unit, killing 12 soldiers
and capturing eight.
The army says it has since killed 80 rebels on
Turkish territory.
A top PKK commander on Thursday called on Ankara to
present a peace plan
that could end the group's rebellion, which has
claimed more than 37,000 lives since it began in
1984.
Ankara categorically refuses to have any contact
with or make any concessions to the PKK. Turkey,
along with the United States and much of the
international community, lists the group as a
terrorist organisation.
AFP
**
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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