Turkish Turkey Accuses Southern Kurdistan of
representing an "ethnic group": That is the Pot Calling the Kettle Black!
Tue Feb 27, 2007 AFP
Turkish leaders warned Iraqi Kurds Tuesday that
their claims to the ethnically volatile, oil-rich city of Kirkuk in Iraq and
talk of independence would fuel conflict in the region, Anatolia news agency
reported.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul accused the head of the autonomous Kurdish region
in Iraq, Massud Barzani, of being "irrational" after he told Turkish television
that regional countries should accept that Kurds, who live in Iraq, Iran, Syria
and Turkey, have a right to independence.
"Irrational leadership and ... dreaming in the Middle East have always plunged
the peoples into trouble," Gul told journalists on a flight back home from
Afghanistan, Anatolia reported.
He slammed Barzani's remarks as "either deliberate or an example of
irresponsibility at a time when the region, and particularly Iraq, is passing
through a critical period and when Turkey is following a constructive policy."
Barzani told the NTV news channel Monday that Iraqi Kurds were extending "a hand
of friendship" to Turkey and urged face-to-face talks to end high-running
bilateral tensions over Turkish Kurd rebels who have found safe haven in his
autonomous region in neighbouring northern Iraq.
Ankara is worried that Kurdish control of Kirkuk's oil reserves will boost what
it sees as Kurdish aspirations to break away from Baghdad.
Kurdish independence, it fears, could further fuel a bloody Kurdish separatist
insurgency in adjoining southeast Turkey, which has already resulted in more
than 37,000 deaths.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also denounced Barzani's comments.
"Kirkuk resembles a small Iraq and is not the registered property of any ethnic
group," Anatolia quoted him as saying late Monday.
"Such an attitude is very wrong with regards to Iraq's future. I believe such an
attitude will overshadow peace, love and brotherhood in Iraq," he said.
Both Erdogan and Gul have recently asserted that Ankara was open to talks with
Iraqi Kurds to mend fences and discuss ways of curbing the rebels based in
northern Iraq, contrary to earlier Turkish threats of a cross-border military
operation into the region.
Ankara has grown increasingly impatient with US and Iraqi reluctance to move
against the militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a
terrorist group by both Ankara and Washington, among others.
Army chief General Yasar Buyukanit has accused Iraqi Kurds of "fully" supporting
the PKK and providing it with explosives for bomb attacks in Turkey.
In Monday's interview, Barzani denied that Iraqi Kurds supported the group.
