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Turkey allegedly paid $7 million to Jalal
Talabani for Kurdish peshmerga troops salaries
1.9.2010 |
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Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani allegedly sought financial
aid from Turkey for the salaries of his Kurdish
peshmerga troops
September 1, 2010
ISTANBUL, — Iraqi President Jalal Talabani,
head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK),
allegedly sought financial aid from a previous
Turkish government in order to pay the salaries of
Kurdish peshmerga troops.
Talabani met with Turkish authorities on May 1,
2000, in Sulaimaniyah in Kurdistan region in Iraq'
north, and the Kurdish leader sought $2 million per
month to pay the salaries of peshmerga security
forces, but the 57th Turkish government at the time
agreed to pay only $600,000, according to reports
published in the Sabah daily on Tuesday.
Sabah’s report came a day after it unveiled a
document that the then-government also met with
Iraqi Kurdistan region president Massoud Barzani
over aid for peshmerga troops.
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Iraqi president Jalal Talabani (R) with Kurdistan
region president Massoud Barzani. Talabani allegedly
sought financial aid from a previous Turkish
government in order to pay the salaries of Kurdish peshmerga troops. |
The Turkish government was cooperating at the time
with Barzani and his rival, Talabani, against the
outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has
bases in Iraq Kurdistan.
The Turkish Armed
Forces (TSK), together with the peshmerga troops,
fought against the PKK at the time, resulting in
many peshmerga casualties.
Sabah reports that the 57th Turkish coalition
government, which included Bülent Ecevit’s
Democratic Left Party (DSP), Devlet Bahçeli’s
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and Mesut Yılmaz’s
Motherland Party (ANAP) approved the aid to Talabani
for that purpose.
It said MHP leader Bahçeli approved his coalition
government’s move to support Barzani through
military and cash assistance. According to the
report,www.ekurd.netthe
Turkish government and Barzani had meetings in which
Barzani conveyed problems they faced and demanded
assistance from Turkey.
Turkey reportedly agreed to send aid to the Barzani
administration frequently and the report says that
then-Defense Minister Sabahattin Çakmakoğlu, an MHP
member, also put his stamp on the decision.
Between 1999 and 2000, the Turkish government paid
$7 million to the Talabani government.
Talabani had also demanded that the Turkish
government provide food stocks, various weapons and
ammunition to the peshmerga. The Turkish
government’s aid, which began in August 2000, lasted
two years. The content of the aid was recorded in
detail, Sabah reported.
Following Sabah’s coverage on Monday of the 57th
government’s cooperation with Barzani, the MHP
demanded that records of the alleged aid be made
public.
The MHP, stressing that it has not changed its
negative view of Barzani, has not denied the Sabah
report. However, the MHP has asked Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to disclose “what other secret
agreements” were made with the current Kurdish
regime in northern Iraq.
Opposed to the government’s Kurdish initiative, MHP
leader Bahçeli regularly calls on the Justice and
Development Party (AK Party) government to stop its
efforts to settle the Kurdish question through
peaceful means.
Bahçeli accuses Prime Minister Erdoğan of destroying
Turkish national values, saying that his government
has in the seven years it has been in power achieved
what the PKK failed to do.
The MHP is one of the strongest opponents of the
Kurdish initiative and claims that the project is
aimed at dividing the country.
Copyright, respective
author or news agency, todayszaman com
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