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Hoshyar Zebari advises Ankara to meet Kurdistan's
president Barzani
28.4.2007 |
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April
28, 2007
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari advised Turkey
on Thursday to resume talks with Kurdistan's
president Massoud Barzani, president of Kurdistan
regional government, to leave the recent conflicts
behind and put relations back on the track.
Barzani warned Turkey
on April 7 in an
interview. He said Iraqi Kurds would interfere
in Diyarbakir and other Turkish cities if Ankara
insisted on interfering in Kirkuk. Angered by the
threat, Turkey protested Iraq in a written note and
declared that economic, political and military
sanctions
would be applied.
Zebari arrived in Ankara late Thursday and met with
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül. The two
ministers discussed the international meeting
scheduled on May 3-4 in Egypt, the fight against
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists and the
latest tension between Ankara and Barzani. |
Turkey Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül |
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari |
The Iraqi foreign minister, replying to a question
on the PKK during a joint press conference, clearly
advised the Turkish government to keep in touch with
the regional leaders.
The TDN has learned that Zebari said Iraq was
seriously dealing with the PKK problem and that they
have got Turkey's message expressed in the written
note. “We will be doing our best to ensure that
there is a response to Turkey's sensitivities about
the PKK and Kirkuk,” Zebari told Gül, according to
Turkish diplomatic sources.
However Gül wanted more than promises and openly
urged his Iraqi counterpart to take concrete steps
to fight terrorists.
Zebari also asked Gül to attend the Iraqi meeting in
Egypt where Iraq, Iraqi neighbors and the five
permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council will convene. Gül said he will not be able
to be there himself but a high-level Turkish
delegation will participate in that meeting.
Iran's participation not certain:
Zebari, during the press conference, said Iran had
not yet decided whether to attend the meeting. “This
would be the first meeting between the United States
of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Zebari
said at a conference. “First meetings are difficult,
the interactions, the body language,
the seating, etc.”
turkishdailynews com.tr
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, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
about 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city
and the region's oil industry.
The Iraqi Constitution mandates that a referendum on
control of Kirkuk must be held by the end of this
year 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 more than 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to more than 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.
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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