World Tribune.com

Turkey drops plans to invade
northern Iraq

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, August 7, 2006

ANKARA — Turkey has decided to withdraw its threat to invade Iraq.

Officials said the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has determined that Iraq and the United States would help eliminate Kurdish Workers Party strongholds in northern Iraq. They said Erdogan received two phone calls from U.S. President George Bush that pledged to block the flow of PKK fighters from Iraq to Turkey.

In Washington, the Bush administration confirmed that Turkey was no longer threatening to attack Iraq. Officials said Iraq has agreed to cooperate with Turkey to end the PKK threat, Middle East Newsline reported. "The Iraqi government has begun to take steps and we are following them," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Aug. 2.

Erdogan did not elaborate. But officials said Iraq has started to share intelligence on the PKK presence with the Turkish military and Interior Ministry.

"Iraq has recently given us information about the measures it foresees to stop the activities of the PKK terrorist organization in Iraq," Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said. "We expect these measures to produce concrete results very soon."

Over the last week, Iraqi officials held talks in Ankara regarding ways to eliminate the PKK threat. They said Iraqi officials discussed with their Turkish counterparts a plan to restrict PKK movements and end military activities along the Turkish border.

Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani has met PKK commander Murat Karayilan to discuss insurgency activities. CNN Turk television reported that Barzani told Karayilan not to use northern Iraq as a base to attack Turkey. "These are activities that are carried out in certain secrecy, within a program and timing," Tan said. "The struggle [against the PKK] will continue, and at the end of the day, the PKK will definitely be defeated. We will see this very clearly, very soon." "I don't think that's what people are talking about right now," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "What people are talking about is how to work together to solve the [PKK] problem. So you don't have the Turkish government talking about launching attacks into Iraq. Everybody wants to find a solution to the problem."


Copyright © 2006 East West Services, Inc.

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