KurdistanObserver.com

U.S. Tells Turks it won't fight Kurds

January 12, 2005
By Susan Suchs
The New York Times

ISTANBUL-- The commander of American forces in the Middle East told the Turkish government on Tuesday that he could not spare any troops to meet its request for an assault on Kurdish guerrillas who have been using northern Iraq as a base for attacks on Turkish forces.

Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the Army's Central Command, said during a visit in Ankara that the United States considered the main Kurdish separatist group, the P.K.K., a terrorist organization. But, he added, "wealso understand - all of us understand - that our troops have a lot of work to do there along with the Iraqi security forces, and we agree that, over time, we must deal with the P.K.K."

The general's statement, little different from the assurances given by other American officials over the last year, was unlikely to ease either government or public hostility in Turkey toward American policy in Iraq.

Turkey has complained for months that the United States has done little in Iraq to discourage Turkey's Kurdish separatists, to stop the eviction of the Turkmen population from the disputed city of Kirkuk, or to prevent frequent kidnappings and killings of Turkish workers and truck drivers in Iraq.

The government also fears that an overwhelming victory by Iraqi Shiites in the elections this month could lead Iraqi Kurds to solidify their semiautonomous status in northern Iraq.

A separate American delegation, headed by Laura Kennedy, a deputy under secretary of state, also met with Turkish and Iraqi officials in Ankara on Tuesday to talk about the P.K.K. incursions. A statement issued after the meeting underscored that the United States preferred to see the Iraqis and Turks work out the problem together.