ANKARA, Oct 5: Turkey warned the breakaway Kurds in northern Iraq on Saturday that it would take unspecified “measures” if their revived regional parliament proved to be a step towards independence.
“We keep watching. If it goes further, Turkey will, of course, take the necessary measures,” Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit told reporters.
“The establishment of an independent (Kurdish) state next to our borders is unacceptable,” said Ecevit, whose country has acknowledged maintaining a certain military presence in northern Iraq.
Turkey worries that the Iraqi Kurds, outside Baghdad’s authority and under the protection of a US-enforced no-fly zone since the 1991 Gulf War, could declare independence if the US ousts the Baghdad regime.
A Kurdish state in the region could incite Turkey’s own Kurds in adjoining southeast Turkey.
The two main factions controlling northern Iraq — the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) — convened their joint parliament for the first time in six years on Friday.
The assembly endorsed a US-brokered peace deal between KDP and PUK, which are part of the opposition Washington is trying to unite against Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell sent a message to the assembly hailing the KDP-PUK reconciliation and urging further peacemaking.
“I don’t know with what intention this message was sent. But if this initiative was undertaken on the basis of an aim to establish a separate state, we would not welcome it or see it as a friendly act. But I do not think it had such an intention,” Ecevit said.
Earlier this week, Ecevit accused the US of encouraging independence moves by Iraqi Kurds, which, he said, worked against US efforts to win Turkey’s support against Iraq.
Ecevit denied on Saturday the US had asked Turkey for permission to use its air bases to strike Iraq.—AFP
