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April 13, 2007
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Iraqi Kurd official blasts Turk general's war talk
Reuters - By Shamal Akrawi
ARBIL, Iraq - The speaker of Iraqi Kurdistan's parliament on Friday described a call by Turkey's top general for a military operation in northern Iraq as a "dangerous escalation".
General Yasar Buyukanit, head of Turkey's military General Staff, said on Thursday the military operation would aim to crush Turkish and Kurdish rebels hiding in Kurdistan. He said he had not asked parliament to authorise any such operation.
"The threats by (Buyukanit) are a dangerous escalation that we take very seriously," Adnan al-Mufti told a news conference in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdish region in the north of the country.
"We hope that reason will prevail in taking decisions, because any military intervention will complicate matters more and will shape a threat to the Iraqi people."
Turkey has repeatedly urged the Baghdad government and U.S. forces in Iraq to crack down on an estimated 4,000 rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who use northern Iraq as a springboard to attack targets inside Turkey.
Mufti criticised the Turks, saying they had refused to speak with Iraqi Kurd officials.
"We asked for negotiations with Turkish officials to discuss the problems ... but the problem was on the other side," he said.
Ankara has said it reserves the right under international law to send troops into northern Iraq to tackle the rebels if Iraq and Washington continue to disregard its calls for action.
The United States reacted coolly to Buyukanit's comments.
The escalation in rhetoric came after Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani said in a television interview last week that Iraqi Kurds would interfere in Turkey's mainly Kurdish cities if Ankara interfered in northern Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sought to calm Turkey after Barzani's comments, making clear Iraq's foreign policy was decided by the government in Baghdad.
Turkish and Iraqi Kurdish leaders have since verbally sparred, but Buyukanit's comments marked a sharp escalation.
"The existence of PKK elements is ... an internal Turkish problem which they have to solve in a political manner, not militarily," said Mufti, who is also an aide to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, also a Kurd.
Ankara is worried by what it sees as moves by Iraqi Kurds to build an independent state in northern Iraq, with the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk as its capital, fearing this could reignite separatism among its own Kurdish population.
A referendum on the status of Kirkuk, which sits on some of Iraq's richest oil fields, is due by the end of 2007. Settling its final status is one of the most sensitive issues in Iraq.
Barzani and other Kurdish officials have repeatedly indicated that the issue of Kirkuk as a red line.
"The issue of Kirkuk is an internal Iraqi issue in which the Turks should not interfere," Mufti said. "We want good relations with Turkey ... but they cannot impose their opinion on another people that is outside their country's borders."
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