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Iraqi President Jalal Talabani slams
Turkish raids inside Kurdistan
25.12.2007
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December
25, 2007
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan Region 'Iraq',--,
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Monday Turkey
has the right to defend itself against 'terrorist'
acts but the self-defense must be done in the
Turkish territory and not on the Iraqi soil.
Talabani held tri-lateral talks with Iraqi Vice
President Tariq al-Hashemi and the Kurdistan
President, Massoud Barzani on Monday in Sulaimaniyah
to discuss the stepped-up attacks on Turkey's
Kurdish PKK rebels.
After the talks he told a news conference the three
men had signed a memorandum of understanding aimed
at "boosting long-term relations" between the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan
Democratic Party and Iraqi Islamic Party.
"This move is aimed at achieving and implementing
what had previously been agreed upon concerning the
formation of a real national unity government,"
Talabani said. |
Iraqi President : Jalal Talabani, a Kurd |
The meeting came, as reports said Turkish fighter
jets had bombed Turkish Kurdish PKK rebel targets in
semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in 'northern Iraq'.
A spokesman for Iraqi Kurdistan's Peshmerga security
forces said the jets bombed an area of about 85 km
north of Erbil near the border with Turkey on Sunday
for about an hour and a half.
He said there were no civilian casualties because
the area was deserted due to a fear of Turkish
attacks.
During the news conference on Monday, Kurdistan
President Massoud Barzani condemned the Turkish
bombardment.
"The bombing targeted safe and secure areas and
innocent people. Several people were either killed
or wounded," he said without referring to a
particular incident.
Barzani said he held talks with Talabani and Al-Hashemi
and other concerned parties "to put an end to these
aggressions and put to an end the shelling of
villages".
Meanwhile, a Turkish official said that President
George W. Bush promised NATO ally Turkey continued
help in its fight against separatist Kurdish rebels,
some of whom are based in Iraq.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan talked
with Bush on the phone Monday afternoon, and the two
leaders discussed bilateral cooperation as Turkey
strives to scrub out rebel bases in northern Iraq,
the official from the prime minister's office said.
Barzani refused to meet US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice when she made a surprise visit to
Iraq on Dec 18, two days after the Turks began their
bombings.
Talabani, also a Kurd, said Iraq's foreign minister
had summoned the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad and
lodged a formal complaint, but said he did not want
to exacerbate tensions between Iraq and its neighbor.
He was standing next to Barzani.
Over 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
The PKK demanded Turkey's recognition of the Kurds'
identity in its constitution and of their language
as a native language along with Turkish in the
country's Kurdish areas,www.ekurd.net
the party also demanded
an end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, granting them full
political freedoms.
Also at the news conference, Iraqi Vice President
Tariq al-Hashemi highlighted the improved security
situation in restive areas in Iraq and in Baghdad.
He said this was due to a change in the attitudes of
the Iraqi society.
"The people instead of giving safe shelters to
terrorism, they volunteered to combat terror.
Consequently the government and other official
organizations should support those people," he said.
alalam ir
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