Baghdad - The government of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region will not accept any
security agreement sealed by Baghdad and Ankara without its consent, a Kurdish
official said on Thursday.
Iraq's Minister of Interior Jawad al-Bulani has signed a security agreement in
Ankara that would allow Turkish troops to make incursions into northern Iraqi
territories in search for Kurdish rebels operating from the area.
The agreement is meant to allay Turkey's concerns over its own armed Kurdish
rebels from the PKK who are still hiding out in northern Iraq.
'The question of the PKK is a political issue and it should not be resolved by
military means,' Jamal Abdallah, the spokesman for the Kurdish Autonomous
Region, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
Abdallah described any security agreement that aims at ending the rebel
activities in Kurdish areas in northern Iraq as 'useless'.
He explained that it was difficult to control areas on the border between Iraq
and Turkey because of the geography of the region.
Turkish troops have tried many times to flush out rebel activities and destroy
their bases in northern Iraq's rugged, mountainous areas but failed, Abdallah
said.
'Any military operation of Turkish troops against PKK rebels would take place in
the territories of the province of Kurdistan, which is recognized in the Iraqi
constitution as a federal province with its own sovereignty and particularity
within Iraq,' he said.
Thus, any security deal with Turkey should be approved by the province's
government, Abdallah concluded.
Direct talks between Turkey and its own rebel group is the only way to resolve
the issue of their presence in northern Iraq, Abdallah said.
Iraq's virtually independent Kurdish region is causing unease in Ankara as this
would have an effect on the aspirations of its own restive Kurdish minority.
