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Turkish FM: Action against PKK key to
dialogue with Iraqi Kurds
8.4.2008
By Staff
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April
8, 2008
Ankara, — Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said
Monday that if the regional Iraqi Kurdistan
authorities in northern Iraq display a stronger
stance against the presence of the Turkey's outlawed
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on their soil, Ankara
would be encouraged to engage in more substantive
dialogue with them.
Babacan's remarks on the issue came at a joint press
conference in Ankara following his meeting with
visiting Laotian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign
Minister Thongloun Sisoulith. Stressing the
importance Ankara attaches to contacts with the
central government in Baghdad, Babacan said that
there are already "channels of communication "
between Ankara and the regional administration in
northern Iraq, when asked whether there was a plan
for a visit to Ankara by Nechirvan Barzani, the
prime minister of the Kurdistan region. |
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan |
"Nevertheless, as I have already stated on a number
of occasions, particularly when we look at the issue
of the "terrorist" PKK organization, it is important
for us that the administration in northern Iraq has
a more determined and clear manner both in words and
deeds," Babacan said.
"The stronger the determination we see on this
issue, the more this will help the dialogue that may
occur in the future," he added without elaborating
on a probable visit by Nechirvan Barzani.
Late last month Turkey's Special Envoy to Iraq Murat
Özçelik visited the neighboring country for over a
week. Ahead of his departure for Ankara, Özçelik had
talks with Safin Dizayee, a senior official of
Iraq's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by
Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani.
The meeting took place in Duhok and ended with an
accord to arrange a visit by an Iraqi Kurdish
delegation to Ankara in April, Iraqi Kurdish sources
told Today's Zaman at the time. The venue and the
exact date for a long-expected meeting between
Turkish officials and Nechirvan Barzani could be set
during the upcoming visit by the Iraqi Kurdish
delegation to Ankara, they noted.
Özçelik's meetings in Iraq took place as a follow-up
to a recent visit to Ankara by Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani on March 7-8. The Iraqi president's visit
had come only one week after the Turkish military
withdrew troops from autonomous region of Kurdistan
in 'northern Iraq' following an eight-day ground
offensive against the PKK. Washington,www.ekurd.net
which provided intelligence assistance to Turkey
during the offensive, has urged the Turkish capital
to have direct talks with the regional Kurdistan
administration in 'northern Iraq', led by Barzani,
who has angered Ankara by defying Turkish calls to
designate the PKK a "terrorist" organization.
Turkish forces withdrew
from semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in 'northern
Iraq' on February 29, only a day after US President
George W. Bush
urged Ankara to
quickly wrap up the incursion and Defense Secretary
Robert Gates personally
put pressure on
Turkish leaders during a visit to Ankara.
Turkey rejects direct talks with the official Iraqi
Kurdistan government on the crisis over the Turkey's
separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels.
Officially, Turkey does not recognise the regional
government of Kurdistan led by president Massoud
Barzani.
Turkey has never, and still does not, recognize the
Kurdistan region government (KRG) and refuses to
meet with its representatives in any official
capacity. That reflects Ankara's fear that any
international respect shown to the autonomous Iraqi
Kurdistan region would only embolden Turkey's own
large Kurdish minority to seek similar home-rule
status.
Fouad Hussein, the chief of staff for Iraqi
Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani, thinks that the
Turks are using the PKK as a pretext to attack the
Kurds. "The PKK is not the target. The target is
Kurdistan regional government," Hussein said
earlier. Iraqi Kurds says, the PKK problem is an
"internal Turkish problem,"
Iraqi Kurdistan forces chief Brig. Gen. Jabbar Yawar,
an undersecretary for the ministry governing
Kurdistan protection forces known as Peshmerga, said
"Turkey wants imaginary and impossible demands. They
want us to kill all PKK for them while they
themselves cannot do that," he said earlier.
Nonetheless, in the last few weeks Iraqi Kurdish
news portals reported on positive messages delivered
by Barzani concerning Talabani's visit to Ankara.
Over the weekend, Barzani delivered remarks
expressing his administration's loyalty to Iraq's
unity.
"The Kurds represented and still represent an
essential pillar in the political process; before
the former regime was ousted, we were almost an
independent state, but Kurdistan's parliament opted
for unity with our Iraqi brothers outside of the
Kurdistan region," Barzani was quoted as saying in
an interview with the Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
A European Union court on April 3,
overturned a decision
to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its political wing on
the European Union's terror list.
The EU court said the autonomy-seeking PKK,www.ekurd.net
or
Kurdistan Workers Party, and its political wing,
known as KONGRA-GEL, were not in positions "to
understand, clearly and unequivocally, the
reasoning" that led EU governments to add them
to the terror list.
Over 39,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas have been killed since 1984 when 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 rebels.
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, ranting them full
political freedoms.
The PKK is considered a 'terrorist' organization by
Ankara, U.S., the PKK continues to be on the
blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which
overturned a decision to place the Kurdish rebel
group PKK and its political wing on
the European Union's terror list.
Information for this report was provided by
todayszaman com | AFP | Agencies
** Kurds are not recognized as an official minority
in Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
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 25 million ethnic Kurds, a
large Turkey's Kurdish community 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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