TURKEY/ IRAQ: Major powers seek to reduce Turkey-Iraqi border tension and pro-PKK offices closed in northern Iraq

Major powers seek to reduce tensions on the Turkish-Iraqi border at regional foreign ministers' conference and Iraqi government closes office of pro-PKK party. Iraq said on Saturday (November 3) it was ready to hunt down and arrest Kurdish guerrilla leaders responsible for cross-border raids into Turkey in an effort to avert a major incursion by the Turkish military. Major powers and countries in the region, meeting in Istanbul to discuss Iraqi security, are seeking to ease tensions on the Turkish-Iraqi border that could escalate into a bigger regional crisis. The so-called "neighbours' conference", hosted by Turkey, was meant to focus on improving security in Iraq but has been overshadowed by the fall-out from PKK guerrilla attacks launched from Iraq and concerns for regional stability. Turkey wants leaders of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) arrested and seeks the closure of camps in northern Iraq which they use as bases for cross-border attacks in their 23-year-old campaign for a homeland in southeast Turkey. "International unity and the importance of Iraq's territorial integrity should be emphasised. Iraq's stability is necessary," Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told the conference. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticised the recent incidents where Kurdish rebels from northern Iraq mounted attacks in southern Turkey. "It is clearly unacceptable that Iraq's territory is used to mount cross border attacks," Ban Ki-moon told the meeting of dozens of foreign ministers, held in an Ottoman palace on the banks of the Bosphorus. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki were among those who also attended the conference. "Your presence today is considered the crowning of our collective efforts to achieve stability and security for our country, Iraq, which is striving to achieve its goals through constructive co-operation with those who are concerned with peace and justice in the world," said al-Maliki. Turkey is growing increasingly impatient at what it sees as U.S. and Iraqi foot-dragging over the threat from the PKK and has massed up to 100,000 troops on the border for a possible offensive against about 3,000 rebels using Iraq as a base. But the government in Baghdad has little influence over the semi-autonomous Kurdish regions in the north and the success of any measures against PKK militants would depend on the cooperation of Kurdish authorities. Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani has so far refused to arrest PKK members. In northern Iraq, a Kurdish official said the regional government had shut down the offices of a political party which sympathises with the PKK. A declaration after Saturday's meeting of ministers from major western powers and the region included condemnation of all terrorism in Iraq, applauded bilateral arrangements between Iraq and its neighbours and supported the country's full sovereignty. The United States supports limited strikes by Turkey on PKK training sites but opposes any large-scale invasion.

ITN Source | November 3, 2007

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