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Turkey to step up diplomacy over Kurdish
PKK rebels in Iraq
24.2.2007
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February 24, 2007
ANKARA - Turkey,-- Turkey's top security body
said Friday the government should step up diplomatic
initiatives to resolve a row with Iraq and the
United States over Turkish Kurd rebels based in
Kurdistan (northern Iraq).
The emphasis on diplomacy came at a time when ties
between Ankara and Iraqi Kurds have deteriorated
following Turkish threats of a cross-border military
operation to crack down on rebel bases.
"It will be useful to intensify political and
diplomatic efforts to overcome the terrorist threat
stemming from northern Iraq and... the tensions that
the dispute over Kirkuk's status has created in
Iraq," the National Security Council said in a
statement after a routine meeting.
The council, an advisory body, is chaired by the
president and brings together the country's civilian
and military leadership.
Ankara has grown increasingly impatient with US and
Iraqi reluctance to move against the Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK), an armed separatist group
listed as a terrorist organisation by both Ankara
and Washington, whose members have taken refuge in
northern Iraq.
Army chief General Yasar Buyukanit last week accused
Iraqi Kurds, who control the region, of supporting
the PKK and providing it with explosives for bomb
attacks in Turkey. He also raised objections to any
move by Ankara to seek dialogue with them.
His comments drew a veiled rebuke by Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul, who insisted that the
government would not shy away from talks with any
Iraqi group to ensure that problems are resolved
through political means.
Buyukanit also charged that Iraqis provided no
security on their side of the mountainous frontier,
giving the PKK a free hand in its operations.
Washington has warned Ankara against an incursion
into northern Iraq, wary that such it may
destabilise a relataively peaceful region in the
conflict-torn country.
Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds are also at loggerheads
over the future of the ethnically volatile, oil-rich
city of Kirkuk, which the Kurds want to incorporate
into their autonomous region although the city is
also home to Arabs and Turkish-backed Turkmens.
Ankara is worried that Kurdish control of Kirkuk's
oil reserves will boost what it sees as Kurdish
aspirations to break away from Baghdad.
An independent Kurdish state, it fears, could fuel
the 22-year PKK insurgency in adjoining southeast
Turkey, which has already claimed more than 37,000
lives.
AFP
** The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
more than 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city and the region's
oil industry.
Kirkuk city is a Kurdistani city and it lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region and it is not under the full
control of Kurdistan Regional Government
administration. Based on Iraq's Constitution, a
referendum is to be held in late 2007 to decide
whether the oil-rich Kurdish province should be
annexed to the safe semiautonomous Kurdistan region
in Iraq's north.
** 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 as many as 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 some 20 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
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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