'We'll defend our homeland', Kurd leader vows
The most senior leader in Iraq’s Kurdish region appeared to raise the stakes in the stand-off over northern Iraq, warning Turkey that the region would defend itself against any cross-border military strike on rebel bases.
The tough line taken by the Kurdish region’s president, Massoud Barzani, further stoked worries that a Turkish incursion could ignite a wider cycle of conflict and unrest in one of the few stable corners of Iraq.
Barzani said urgent talks were needed on all sides. But Turkey has flatly declared it has lost patience with escalating attacks by separatist guerrillas who use hideouts in northern Iraq.
As both Baghdad and Washington struggled to avert conflict between two of its key allies in the region, Turkey’s prime minister insisted that the camps of Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq must be destroyed and rebel leaders extradited to Turkey for trial.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has battled for more than two decades for autonomy in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish south east. The conflict has claimed more than 30,000 lives.
American officials have suggested the US and Iraq may engage in joint action against the PKK. But Barzani had stern words for Turkey.
“We are fully prepared to defend our democratic experience and the dignity of our people and the sanctity of our homeland” against what he termed threatened aggression.
On Wednesday Turkey’s parliament gave the government a one-year window in which to launch cross-border offensives against Turkish Kurd rebel strongholds in Iraq. The vote led to large-scale protests by Iraqi Kurds, calls for restraint by Baghdad and Washington and uncertainty over Turkey’s next move – which has helped push oil prices to record highs.
Bomb blasts, meanwhile, crippled an Iraqi oil pipeline feeding a refinery near the northern oil hub of Kirkuk, which many Kurds consider part of their historical homeland. Such attacks, blamed on anti-US militants, occur frequently.
Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, said Baghdad was willing to increase pressure on the PKK, but his comments did not appear to appease Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“We welcome this as a positive step, but it is an announcement that came late,” Erdogan said in Istanbul yesterday.
“The PKK camps must be eradicated and the rebel leaders must be extradited. That would satisfy Turkey.”
Erdogan said he had told Iraqi prime minister Nouri Maliki that Turkey did not want to be “deceived with promises”.
Iraqi president Jalal Talibani, speaking in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, said the US would “not accept” any Turkish military operations in northern Iraq. But he also predicted Ankara would not launch an assault.
United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon urged all sides to show restraint.
Since the first Gulf War, Turkey has been concerned that autonomy for Kurds in northern Iraq would encourage separatist hopes among Turkey’s estimated three million Kurds. In addition to Turkey, Iraq and Syria, Iran also has a large Kurdish population.
Turkish anger over the Kurdish issue was deepened by a debate in the US Congress over whether to label the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks during the First World War as genocide. Erdogan thanked the US administration for trying to block the genocide resolution.
Turkey has accused Iraqi Kurdish officials of turning a blind eye to the presence of the PKK. But Zebari said Iraq did not have sufficient military forces to push the separatist fighters out of Iraq while battling al-Qaida, Sunni Arab militants and Shiite Muslim militias.
