Iraq Interior Ministry Says Turkey Needs Official Approval
Baghdad, Oct 10-Iraq will not allow Turkish military forces to enter into the Iraqi territories to hunt down members of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) without an official approval from the Iraqi government, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.
The government warned Turkey against making an incursion into northern Iraq.
“The security agreement signed between the two countries last month envisages a security border agreement, cooperation in fighting terrorism and the exchange of information,” the Director of the national command center General Abdul Karim Khalaf al-Kenani told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
Turkey signed last month a security agreement with Iraq regarding the joint cooperation in fighting “terrorism,” but the agreement does not explicitly stipulate Turkey’s right to enter into the Iraqi territories to hunt down PKK members in northern Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed last August with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan a memorandum of understanding on security cooperation that led to the current agreement.
Iraqi and Turkish interior ministers also signed an agreement within this framework.
Turkey says that thousands of PKK fighters are using northern Iraq as a base to launch their attacks against Turkey.
It also accused the Kurdish government of supporting PKK by weapons and ammunitions.
The northern Iraqi borders have been a scene of tension and repeated Turkish artillery shelling.
A total of 13 Turkish soldiers were killed last Sunday in a raid by gunmen, believed to be members of the PKK on a military site near Shernak city, southeast of Turkey. The Turkish army responded by launching wide scale crackdown operation to hunt down the perpetrators
For its part, the U.S. warned Turkey against making an incursion into northern Iraq.
“If they have a problem, they need to work together to resolve it and I am not sure that unilateral incursions are the way to go, the way to resolve the issue,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
The warning came in the wake of the Sunday’s attack.
The U.S. said it was committed to working with both Turkey and Iraq to combat the PKK fighters which is believed to be behind the attacks.
There are fears both in Baghdad and Washington that a military operation by Turkey could destabilize northern Iraq.
Press reports have indicated the Turkish government was seeking parliamentary approval for a possible cross-border military operation to hunt down PKK fighters in Iraq’s Kurdistan.
(VOI)
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The Pkk has and has had far to many splinter groups under the same umbrella. That idiot rag The New Yorker recently tried to tie the US with the PJAK “The supposed Irabian branch” of the PKK.
Those T.N.Y. F*cktards didn’t seem to realize that Iran helped support the PKK while the PJAK was causing terrorism in Iran. DUH!
This is a situation best understood when translated by the likes of David Kilcullen on how it should be dealt with..
The PKK stared as a brotherhood of communism but I don’t think any of the original idealism are in tact from the late 70’s
The PJAK has suggested they would work with us but all those groups are made up of crinimals, Taliban, drug trafficers and hard core fundalmental terrorist of every flavor.
…and if there isn’t enough to tie these rag tag bands together we have Turkey’s past history (1915 genocide of the Armenians) being brought to the forefront for judgement.
Turkey is a key ally and the PKK traffics heroin. Those are two axioms to guide by but the PKK is not one entity.
October 10th, 2007 at 9:30 pm