A Brief Portion Of Talabani's Remarks to TDN

Mar 8, 2002

Asked about plans to visit Washington, Talabani said that the plan was not working now. 

"The plan was a two stage-one which included meetings first to take place in Ankara and then in Washington with the participation of the representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and Turkey. But now I don't know what has happened to the proposal," he said. 

A U.S. delegation which visited northern Iraq recently assured the Iraqi Kurds that they would be protected and that their shares would not be badly affected, the PUK leader said. 

Foreign interference means chaos 

When reminded about a famous article by New York Times' William Safire which said that that Turkey should be involved in developments in northern Iraq, Talabani commented that any interference of the states in the region would bring chaos in Iraq. 

"If Turkey is involved, Iran and Syria also will be involved, and there will be a chaos in Iraq," Talabani commented. 

Criticizing Turkish press reports exaggerating the use of the word "Kurdistan" by the leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Iraqi Kurdish leader said that the word "Kurdistan" was official both in Iraq and Iran. 

"The word is official in these two countries, as it used to be official during the time of the Ottoman Empire. There is a list of the deputies on the wall of the old building of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, and there is a reference to deputies from Kurdistan even on that wall," Talabani said.