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U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney presses
Iraqi Kurds on reconciliation
18.3.2008
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March 18, 2008
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', --
Visiting US Vice President Dick Cheney urged top
Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani on Tuesday
to help build a long-term US-Iraq strategic
relationship and pass key reconciliation laws.
Cheney had arrived in Erbil, the capital of the
autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region, on Tuesday
morning to discuss recent political developments
with Kurdish officials.
At their meeting in the Kurdish city of Erbil,www.ekurd.net
Barzani vowed that Iraqi
Kurds would be "part of the solution, not part of
the problem" as well as a "factor for peace and
stability" in the area.
Their talks had also been expected to focus on
Turkish operations against rebels from the Turkey's
Kurdistan Workers' Party PKK holed up in northern
Iraq after an
incursion that
Iraqi Kurds and the Baghdad government branded an
attack on Iraq's sovereignty.
Turkey claimed last month's offensive dealt a
serious blow to the PKK -- which is branded by much
of the international community as a terrorist
organisation -- with at least 240 militants killed
and dozens of hideouts, training camps and
ammunition depots destroyed. |
US Vice President Dick Cheney walks with Massoud
Barzani, president of Iraq's Kurdistan region. The
two are expected to hold talks on Turkish operations
against Turkey's PKK rebel holed up in northern Iraq
18.3.2008 AFP |
But Washington and much
of the international community brand the PKK as a
"terrorist" organisation and Turkish strikes into
Kurdistan region in northern Iraq are largely seen
backed by the United States.
"We are certainly counting on President Barzani's
leadership to help us conclude a new strategic
relationship between the United States and Iraq as
well as advance crucial peaces of national
legislation in the months ahead," Cheney said on the
second day of a surprise visit to Iraq.
Barzani said Iraqi Kurds would continue to play a
"positive role" in order to achieve a "a federal,
democratic, pluralistic, free Iraq."
"I would like also, Mr Vice President,www.ekurd.net
to assure you that we
are committed to the constitution of Iraq and we
will continue to play our positive role, to be part
of the solution, and not part of the problem."
"We will also continue to be a factor for stability,
a factor for peace and stability, in all the area,"
he said.
Cheney said the United States and Iraq's Kurds had
built up a "special friendship" during an operation
that created no-fly zones over Kurdish areas to
protect them from ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's
brutal campaign.
"It is important to lay the foundation of the kind
of relationship that will bind our people together
for the future as we build on the experience and
shared sacrifices" of the past," he said.
AFP
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