KurdistanObserver.com

Iraqi MP Calls for Holding  Retaliation Conference Against Turkey

ANKARA - Turkish Daily News

Dec 27, 2006

While former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi was having talks in Ankara on Tuesday, a member of his Iraqi National Accord proposed hosting a conference for Turkey's ethnic Kurds at the Iraqi Parliament, in apparent retaliation for the “Istanbul Conference” of the Iraqi Sunnis, held on Dec. 13 and 14.

  “We are against interfering in the internal affairs of our neighbors,” Allawi said at a press conference following his talks with senior Turkish officials, when he was reminded of the proposal by Ayad Cemalettin, a member of the Iraqi Parliament from his national accord.

  Cemalettin argued that it would be possible for a parliamentary group or political party to host the “Conference for Supporting Turkey's Kurds,” the Doğan News Agency (DHA) reported on Tuesday, citing a report on the Web site of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

  “Such a conference will be a start for opening very hot files that have so far had the Turkish government's red lines on them,” Cemalettin was quoted as saying by the agency, while he also claimed that the Turkish government has continued to interfere in the domestic affairs of Iraq.

  Cemalettin said the conference hosted earlier this month in Istanbul was an example of Turkey's interference. The conference at the time sparked harsh reaction by Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish politicians, with many condemning the conference for exacerbating the sectarian divide. The head of the SCIRI Badr Organization, Hadi al-Amiri, said he found it unthinkable for a conference to convene under the pretense of supporting the Iraqi people while only inviting Sunnis, while Iraqi President and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani said that Turkey's actions are strange: “On the one hand, [Turkey allows] the inflamers of a sectarian war to hold a congress and, on the other hand, it wants the regional Kurdish government to fight the PKK.”