TURKEY: Iraqi Vice President says Turkey has right to defend its national security if Iraq fails to do so

Iraq urged Turkey not to launch a major attack on Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara would strike the rebels when the timing and conditions were right. Baghdad sent Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi to Ankara and called for urgent talks to head off military action that Washington fears could sow chaos in an area so far spared much of the carnage afflicting other parts of Iraq. "A political solution must be given priority to resolve this critical issue," Hashemi told reporters in the Turkish capital. Erdogan's cabinet asked parliament on Monday for permission to launch cross-border offensives following a spate of Kurdish separatist attacks. Approval is expected on Wednesday. Erdogan said on Tuesday that securing permission for a major attack against rebels in northern Iraq did not necessarily mean a military incursion was imminent. Instead, Erdogan said "we will act at the right time and under the right conditions". "This is about self-defence," he told his ruling AK Party. The prospect of a strike into mainly Kurdish northern Iraq helped push oil prices to a record above $88 a barrel. The Turkish lira fell 5 percent against the dollar. Washington has urged restraint on Turkey, strategically located between Europe and the Middle East. It relies on Turkey for logistical support for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Turkey, for its part, argues that the United States and Iraq have done too little to curb some 3,000 Kurdish rebels attacking eastern Turkey in pursuit of an independent state there. The Iraqi government has little authority to crack down on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters sheltering in the north of the country, where Iraqi Kurds enjoy wide autonomy.

ITN Source | October 17, 2007

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