Iraq's leader on official visit to Turkey
Prime Minister Nouri Maliki left Iraq today on an official visit to Turkey.
The two-day meeting, at the invitation of the Turkish government, was called to discuss ways of improving bilateral relations between the neighbouring countries.
But Maliki and top Turkish officials also were likely to discuss the Iraq war and the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq on Turkey’s border.
Kurdish rebels have been fighting for autonomy in south-eastern Turkey for more than two decades, often slipping across the mountainous border from training camps in northern Iraq.
More than 37,000 people have died from the fighting since 1984, when the rebels took up arms against the Turkish state.
The Iraqi delegation that Maliki took to Turkey included Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd; Finance Minister Bayan Jabr; Electricity Minister Karim Waheed; Trade Minister Abed-Falah al-Sudani; Agriculture Minister and Acting Transport Minister Yarrub Nazim; Minister of State for National Security Sherwan al-Waili; and some politicians.
