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Iraq's Talabani tells PKK disarm or leave Iraq
posted on 04-05-2009 19:06 |
Mon Mar 23, 2009 12:00pm EDT
By Paul de Bendern
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's President Jalal Talabani said on Monday the Turkish separatist guerrilla group Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) must lay down its arms or leave Iraqi soil.
The comments by Talabani, a Kurd, were some of the toughest made recently by an Iraqi leader against PKK rebels, who have used northern Iraq as a base to launch attacks in Turkey, straining ties between Baghdad and Ankara.
"Either it lays down its arms or it leaves our territory," Talabani, told a news conference alongside Turkey's visiting President Abdullah Gul.
He was speaking through a translator.
Gul, making the first visit by a Turkish head of state to Iraq in more than three decades, said the time had come "to end all these problems which hinder relations between Turkey and Iraq."
"A thorough operation must be carried out (against the PKK) and this is the responsibility of all of us."
Turkey has accused Iraq in the past of not doing enough to crack down on the PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Washington and the European Union
Gul's visit comes less than a year after Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan came to Baghdad, marking a milestone in Iraq's efforts to end its regional isolation after U.S.-led troops toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Turkey regularly shells PKK targets in Iraq. This month it killed at least four PKK guerrillas, who are fighting for an independent ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey.
A PKK leader said Gul's visit changed nothing.
"For us in the PKK we don't have any fears from this visit, and we believe it will have no affect on us," said Haval Roze, a PKK leader.
A spokesman for the Kurdish Regional Government told Reuters Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani would meet Gul, and that security issues would be high on the agenda.
CONCILIATORY TONE
The Kurdish issue has gained momentum in Turkey as the ruling AK Party government seeks to win votes from Kurds in southeast Turkey in March 29 municipal elections.
The government has also launched a series of initiatives that seek to improve the rights of Kurds, who have long complained of discrimination by the state.
Gul's tone was conciliatory toward Iraq's Kurdish leaders, who he said were organizing a security conference in April.
"They (northern Iraq administration) see that winning over Turkey is an advantage and it is the first time I see them doing something ... We are in a new era now," he said.
In January, Turkey, Iraq and the United States agreed to set up a joint command center in northern Iraq to gather intelligence to fight the PKK.
Ankara blames the PKK for 40,000 deaths since 1984, when the group took up arms. Turkey, which has a large Kurdish minority, has traditionally feared that a Kurdish state in Iraq would reignite calls for independence in the southeast.
Turkey and Iraq are major trading partners, and some 400,000 barrels of Iraqi oil a day -- more than a fifth of Iraqi exports -- are piped through the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
(Additional reporting by Shamal Aqrawi in Arbil, Writing by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Dominic Evans)
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