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Massoud Barzani tells Turkey dialogue should replace
threats
8.5.2007
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May 8, 2007
BRUSSELS, May 8, -- Iraqi Kurdistan president
Massoud Barzani on Monday denied that he threatened
to intervene in Turkey over the Kurdish minority
question, while warning Ankara he would not tolerate
any threats from them.
Barzani, questioned in Brussels by Euro MPs, said
threats are no longer a "valid" approach.
"Do we feel threatened by Turkey? The language of
threat is no longer valid today, dialogue is more
constructive. We are not threatening anybody but we
will not accept threats from anybody either," he
said.
Last month Turkey's army chief called for a military
incursion into neighbouring northern Iraq to hunt
down Turkish Kurd rebels based there, despite US
objections.
Army chief Yasar Buyukanit became the first such
high-ranking military official to publicly argue for
a cross-border operation to crack down on bases of
the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in
northern Iraq (Kurdistan region).
Turkey charges that several thousand PKK rebels have
found refuge in northern Iraq in their 22-year
struggle for self-rule in mainly Kurdish
southeastern Turkey.
The Turkish media has quoted Barzani, head of the
autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, as
saying that they would meddle in Turkey's already
restive, predominantly-Kurdish southeast if Ankara
continued to oppose Iraqi Kurdish ambitions to
attach Kirkuk to their region.
Barzani reportedly said that if Turkey "interferes
in Kirkuk over just a few thousand Turkmens, then we
will take action regarding the 30 million Kurds in
Turkey."
In Brussels the Kurdish leader urged Ankara to seek
a political solution to the Kurdish question, adding
that Turkey often used the PKK as a "pretext" for
its actions.
Turkey is upset by Barzani's plan to hold a
referendum in the oil-rich northern Iraq Kurdish
city of Kirkuk.
Kirkuk, which Iraqi Kurds want to make part of their
autonomous Kurdistan region, has a large population
of Sunni and Shiite Arabs, as well as Turkmen,
making for a fragile ethnic mix. |
President of the Autonomous Kurdish Government in
Iraq, Massoud Barzani speaks with photographers
prior to talks at the EU Council building in
Brussels, Tuesday May 8, 2007 AP
President of the Autonomous Kurdistan Government in
Iraq Massoud Barzani, left, shares a word with EU
foreign policy chief Javier Solana, during a meeting
at the EU Council building in Brussels, Tuesday May
8, 2007, AP |
Turkey sees itself as the traditional protector of
the Turkmen people who, together with the Arabs,
complain of being bullied by the Kurds who make up
half the population of the city and control the
security services.
Barzani stressed, in his discussions in the European
parliament, his refusal to postpone the referendum
which he said would be carried out before the end of
the year.
"Any intervention from outside would add to the
complexities and create more problems in the
future," he added.
However he stressed his support for "a democratic,
federal and multi-party system in Iraq".
"At the same time there has to be segregation of
religion from state," he told the assembled MEPs.
An International Crisis Group report last month said
that a new approach is urgently needed to settle the
status of Kirkuk.
"A referendum conducted against the wishes of the
other communities in 2007 could cause the civil war
to spread to the Kurdish region, until now Iraq's
only quiet area."
AFP
**
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 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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