October 24, 2007	Wednesday	Shawwal 11, 1428

BAGHDAD, Oct 23: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Tuesday ordered the closure of offices run by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), saying Iraq would no longer allow the ‘terrorist’ group to operate on its soil.

“The PKK is a bad terrorist organisation and we have taken a decision to close its offices and not allow them to work on Iraqi soil,” Maliki said in a statement issued after talks with visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan.

“We are putting all our efforts to eliminate their terrorist activities that threaten Iraq and Turkey,” said Maliki, who has been under increasing pressure from Ankara and Washington to act against the Iraq-based Kurdish rebel threat to Turkey.Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who is a Kurd, said earlier that Iraq had begun undertaking a series of measures to thwart the rebels, “including restricting their movements, (their) funding and closing of their offices”.

Babakan used his high-profile visit to reassure Iraq that Turkey wants a diplomatic solution to the problem of Kurdish rebel bases but rejected a conditional ceasefire offer made by the guerrillas.

“Politics, dialogue, diplomacy, culture and economy are the measures to deal with this crisis,” the Turkish minister told a joint news conference in Baghdad with his Iraqi counterpart .

“We do not want to sacrifice our cultural and economic relations with Iraq for the sake of a terror organisation,” he said, referring to the PKK which has used bases in northern Iraq to wage a deadly insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in south-eastern Turkey since 1984.

But Babacan rejected a truce offer made by the PKK on Monday in return for an end to Turkish military action.

“The issue of ceasefire is an issue between two countries and two armies and not with a terror organisation,” he said.

Babacan said diplomacy remained the best way to resolve the crisis despite the ‘huge anger’ in Turkey over the deaths of 12 soldiers in a weekend attack by the rebels on a patrol near the border.

Tens of thousands of Turks protested across Turkey on Tuesday during the funerals of the slain soldiers.

“We are all soldiers, we will smash the PKK,” mourners chanted at one such funeral, while a placard at another funeral read “Treacherous Talabani... give us the dogs”, referring to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.—AFP