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."