Talabani Says PKK To Announce A Cease-Fire Today
Associated Press
Oct 22, 2007
In Washington, the State Department said the United States has
opened a diplomatic "full court press" to urge Turkey not to invade Iraqi
Kurdistan.
"In our view, there are better ways to deal with this issue,"
spokesman Sean McCormack said, stressing that the United States regards the PKK
as a terrorist organization.
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said the Kurdistan Workers'
Party, known by its Kurdish acronym PKK, would make a cease-fire announcement
later Monday.
Talabani's remarks were made to reporters at the airport in
the Kurdish city of Sulaimani before he flew to Baghdad and confirmed by his
office. More details were not immediately available.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he told Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice in a telephone conversation on Sunday night that Turkey
expected "speedy steps from the U.S." in cracking down on Kurdish rebels and
that Rice, who called the Turkish leader, asked "for a few days" from him.
McCormack did not dispute the account of the conversation but
declined to comment on what Rice had meant by asking for "a few days."
Erdogan did not specify what he meant by "speedy steps," but
he has often urged the United States and Iraq to crack down on the PKK. Turkish
leaders say it is the responsibility of those countries to do whatever is
necessary to destroy the guerrilla group's bases in Iraqi Kurdistan.
