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Turkish delegation arrives in Baghdad to meet Iraqi
officials over PKK
1.5.2008
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May
1, 2008
BAGHDAD, -- A Turkish delegation arrived in
Baghdad on Thursday morning to discuss bilateral
ties and the Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
threats on border regions.
“The Turkish delegations, headed by Ahmad Dawood
Uglu, the advisor of Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyib Erdogan, will meet with Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki this morning,” Ali al-Dabagh, the official
spokesman for the Iraqi government, told VOI.
“The delegation’s talks with the Iraqi side will
focus on strategic relations between the two
countries and means to end the PKK threats on border
regions,” al-Dabagh noted.
“The delegation will also meet Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani and Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan
Barzani at President Talabani’s office in Baghdad,www.ekurd.net
and the meeting will
dwell on ways to bolster relations between Baghdad
and Ankara,” he also said.
Turkey has stepped up action against the PKK group since
December and has carried out several air strikes. In
February, thousands of Turkish troops, backed by tanks,
attack helicopters and warplanes,
crossed into Kurdistan region in northern
Iraq on February 21 in an operation which Ankara said was aimed at Turkey's Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas and their bases, where Ankara estimates more than
2,000 militants take refuge.
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.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population
as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural
rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish
language and private Kurdish language courses with
the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish
politicians say the measures fall short of their
expectations.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, VOI |
AFP | Agencies
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