USA Turkish Times - Rice: Anti-PKK fight mustnt destabilize N. Iraq

Rice: Anti-PKK fight mustnt destabilize N. Iraq

The United States has repeated pledges that it will take measures against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) but warned any step in the fight against the terrorist group must not harm stability in northern Iraq. "I understand that they [the Turks] are looking to act. So are we," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters during a visit to Israel on Saturday, according to transcripts of the meeting released by the State Department. "But we would like to act in a way that fulfills two conditions: first of all, that it's going to have an effect on the PKK; and secondly, that it's not going to contribute to destabilization in the North."

Rice spoke to the press after a visit to Ankara on Friday and before Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was due to meet with US President George W. Bush later yesterday for critical talks likely to determine what course Turkey will take in its fight against the terrorist group operating from camps in northern Iraq. Military preparations for a possible cross-border operation have been completed on the border after more than 40 people, mostly soldiers, were killed in PKK attacks over the past one month.

Erdoğan appeared to be in an optimistic mood, saying he had "positive feelings" ahead of his meeting with Bush at the White House. "I believe the statements we will make after the meeting will comfort the Turkish public." In remarks made to an Italian newspaper and published yesterday, Erdoğan said Turkey was ready to hit the PKK bases in Iraq but added that the Iraqis could still prevent military action. "Turkey is ready to hit the PKK to protect its citizens from the terrorist threat, but it is still possible for Iraq to prevent it," he said in remarks published in La Stampa yesterday.

"There has been no concrete step so far. Iraq is obliged to prevent the PKK's terrorist attacks. This is what the many bilateral agreements we signed with Iraq require," he was quoted as saying in another Italian daily, La Reppublica. He also called for international support, saying Turkey should not be left alone in its fight against terrorism.

While in Ankara, Rice declared the PKK a "common enemy" but apparently failed to convince Turkish leaders to drop the idea of a cross-border operation to hit PKK bases in northern Iraq. Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, speaking at a joint press conference with Rice, said Turkey has had enough with words and that it now waited for action.

Rice suggested in Tel Aviv that possible US measures to deal with the PKK threat would focus on sharing intelligence. "We've learned this the hard way. When you have terrorists burrowed into villages or towns or operating in remote locations, the term 'actionable,' it follows, doesn't really have a meaning. And so we've talked a lot about how we can better share information," she said.

Pentagon sources have recently told the press that U-2 spy planes were flying over suspected PKK positions in the mountainous northern Iraq and providing "actionable intelligence" to the Turkish side. They also said some 10 members of the PKK were on a list of most-wanted people of the United States, meaning that they would be arrested if they are found by the US forces operating in Iraq.

The Bush-Erdoğan meeting was taking place amid expectations of an ease in tension after eight soldiers, taken hostage by the PKK following a deadly attack on Oct. 21 near the border with Iraq, were released on Sunday. Iraqi defense minister and the commander of the US forces in Iraq were on a plane that took off from the northern Iraqi city of Arbil to deliver the eight soldiers to Turkey. Erdoğan welcomed the release of the soldiers and thanked the US and Iraqi officials for their joint work to bring about this outcome.

In Tel Aviv, Rice said: "We made very clear our commitment that we really do consider this a problem for us as well, and that therefore we're going to have to find a way to resolve it. And we're working also on what steps the Iraqis might be able to take."

Turkey is urging the Iraqi administration to take measures to eliminate the PKK presence, although it acknowledges that the central administration has little influence in Kurdish-run northern Iraq. But Ankara refuses direct talks with the Iraqi Kurds, saying they support the PKK.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, had talks with Turkish officials on the sidelines of an international conference on Iraq on Saturday in İstanbul, and Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh announced that the government was implementing a series of new measures against the PKK to cut its logistics support and curb PKK militants' movements. Offices of a political party with close links to the PKK were also closed down in northern Iraq, but the measures did little to impress Ankara.

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