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Kurdistan President warns Turkey against
bombings, we cannot accept this situation to continue
25.12.2007
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December
25, 2007
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan Region 'Iraq',--,
Iraq’s Kurdistan regional President Massoud Barzani
warned neighbouring Turkey on Monday that he was
losing patience with its repeated bombing raids
against Turkey's PKK-rebel positions in the north.
Barzani said his people “cannot accept” the bombing
raids and shelling to continue and condemned the
attacks which began on December 16. On Sunday,www.ekurd.net
Turkish fighter jets
bombed Kurdish PKK rebel targets inside Iraqi
Kurdistan territory, in the fourth cross-border
operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or
PKK, in one week.
“We cannot accept this situation to continue,”
Barzani told reporters in the northern city of
Sulaimaniyah. “We cannot accept our villages to be
bombed and our people killed.”
"These daily strikes are unacceptable. Their goal is
not only the PKK but the whole idea of an autonomous
Kurdish region," Barzani claimed. |
Massoud Barzani, the President of the autonomous Regional
Government of Kurdistan 'Iraq' |
“The bombardment of villages near the Qandil
Mountains is no different than bombardment of Erbil,
Sulaimaniyah or the entire Kurdistan region,"
Barzani added.
Turkish jets have carried out three strikes on
Kurdish targets and one ground foray over the past
eight days.
"Several people were either killed or wounded. We
held consultations with [Iraqi] President Jalal
Talabani and we will continue our consultations with
other concerned parties to put an end to these
aggressions and put an end to the shelling of
villages."
Mr. Barzani refused to meet U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice when she made a surprise visit to
Iraq on December 18, two days after the Turks began
their bombings. Iraqi President Jalal 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 neighbour.
He was standing next to Mr. Barzani.
Iraqi Kurdistan politician says, Turkey is using
Turkey's Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an
excuse to invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent
the establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq',www.ekurd.net
Turkey fears this could fan separatism among its own
large Kurdish population in southeast Turkey.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a
'terrorist' group by Turkey, US and EU. Since 1984
the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the country's
mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey. A large Turkey's
Kurdish community openly sympathise with the Kurdish
PKK for a Kurdish homeland in 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, the party also demanded an
end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, granting them full
political freedoms.
AP
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