by Bay Fang
Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of foreign relations for the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, said Friday that the Kurdish government would be interested in meeting with Turkey over the issue of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, suggesting that KRG prime minister Nechirvan Barzani should lead talks with Ankara.
The United States is pressing for a low-profile meeting to take place on the sidelines of the Iraq Neighbors' Conference to be held in Istanbul on November 2-3.
"We hope Turkey can accept that excluding the KRG from talks with the Iraq government doesn't make sense," said Bakir, who is in Washington, DC for meetings with administration officials.
The Turkish parliament on Wednesday authorized its military to conduct cross-border military strikes against the PKK in northern Iraq, a group that is listed as a terrorist group by the US and other countries. The PKK has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984.
Washington, afraid of destabilizing what has been the most peaceful part of Iraq, has urged Turkey not to carry out an incursion.
While the Turkish government has said it is interested in pursuing diplomatic avenues to resolve the issue, it is reluctant to engage directly with Kurdish representatives, for fear of legitimizing the Kurdish government in northern Iraq and thus emboldening its own Kurdish population.
Baghdad sent Tareq al-Hashemi, one of its vice-presidents, to the Turkish capital last week to try to smooth over tensions in the north.
When asked who should be included in diplomatic talks to resolve the crisis, Bakir said the ideal for the KRG would be Turkey, Baghdad, the KRG and the US. "If not the four, then the three," he added with a laugh. "And if not the three, then the two."
The KRG acknowledges that it has some influence over those members of the PKK that live and train in the mountains of northern Iraq, but says that the majority of the group are still in Turkey, or overseas.
Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Friday that Iraq could only prevent Turkish military action if it eradicated Kurdish rebel bases and extradited the group's leaders.
He spoke in response to Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, who said Thursday that Baghdad was willing to increase pressure on the PKK.
"We welcome this as a positive step, but it is an announcement that came late," said Erdogan. "The PKK camps must be eradicated and the rebel leaders must be extradited. That would satisfy Turkey."
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Comments
Yet another chapter in Dubya's book of "The Iraq Civil War of Unintended Consequences."
Former chapters include: Mission Acccomplished, We'll be Greeted as Liberators, The Insurgency is in its Last Throes.
And al-Maliki and the rest of the Iraqi Government does nothing.
Posted by: Doug Zook | October 20, 2007 11:09 AM
If this administration had any kind of foreign policy it would have it's diplomatic corp camped out in Turkey and massaging the Kurds to bring the two sides together to solve their dispute before it escalates into deadly conflict that will further destablize Iraq and create havoc in Turkey, which is straddling the fence between a secular government and an islamist one. Sec of State Rice should be doing smmersaults, back bends, flips and all kind of diplomatic acrobatics to lessen the tension there.
Posted by: GW | October 20, 2007 10:25 PM