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| Europe |
| Turkey to discuss PKK with Rice |
| 2006-04-26 |
| Terrorism, especially in Iraq, is always at the top of the list when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets with foreign leaders. But when Rice met with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, the terrorists he most wanted to talk about weren't related to al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein's regime but to the Kurdistan Workers Party (known as the PKK), a group of violent Kurdish militants who operate from a relative safe haven in northern Iraq. The PKK has long been a thorn in Turkey's side, but the government has been increasingly angry about the inability—or unwillingness—of U.S. and Iraqi forces to take down the PKK camps. The PKK is deep into its usual spring offensive, staging cross-border attacks inside Turkey as part of its independence bid for the Kurdish minority inside Turkey. In the days leading up to Rice's visit, the Turkish press was filled with reports about a large deployment of additional Turkish soldiers to its southern Kurdish areas—and near the border with Iraq. Gul told reporters that there are thousands of PKK fighters in northern Iraq. "Because of this vacuum in Iraq, they have made that area, especially northern Iraq, into some sort of camp for themselves," Gul said. "That area has become a training ground for them." Some reports have speculated that Turkey might send its troops into Iraq to root out the PKK camps if U.S. and Iraqi forces won't take care of them. Gul did not make any public threats but also did not rule it out explicitly as he called for U.S. and Iraqi forces to step up their efforts. "Like any country, Turkey will take her own precautions," he said. "If the Iraqi government establishes its own security forces and controls its own borders . . . then we will have nothing to do." Rice quickly said that she hoped the new Iraqi government would be able to work with U.S. forces to better secure the border with Turkey. "We want anything we do to contribute to stability in Iraq, not to threaten that stability or make a difficult situation worse," she said, in a veiled warning against a Turkish invasion. "We all have an interest in making sure the borders are as secure as possible." Rice pledged to "revitalize" the moribund coordination mechanism between Iraq, Turkey, and the United States once the new Iraqi government takes office. Still, the issue has been a lower-priority one for the U.S. military because the Kurdish areas have been just about the only reliably stable provinces in Iraq. U.S. officials have also been reluctant to divert resources from fighting Sunni insurgents toward combating a group (even a terrorist one) that enjoys the sympathies of Iraq's leading Kurdish parties, which are close U.S. allies. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |