AMMAN, July 24: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari warned Turkey on Sunday not to let its troops cross into northern Iraq to hunt Kurdistan Workers’ Party rebels.

Zebari told Reuters that US forces in Iraq were poised to capture the rebels, who have been waging a violent campaign against Turkey for decades to win Kurdish self-determination, and have bases in northern Iraq.

“They are in regions outside the control of the central and Kurdish government. If they move, the American forces can arrest them,” said Zebari, himself an Iraqi Kurd.

“We have an obligation to Turkey, and to control all non-Iraqi armed groups and prevent activities against neighbouring countries.”

“We reject any regional military interference in Iraqi affairs, whether Turkish, Iranian or Arab, because it destroys confidence and shifts the focus when our priority is finishing the political process, improving the security situation and providing basic services.”

General Ilker Basbug of the Turkish General Staff said last week the United States had given orders for the capture of PKK rebels in Iraq, adding that Turkey had a right to enter Iraqi territory to attack them if no action was taken.

Ankara has repeatedly pressed the United States to act against the PKK in Iraq, where the Turkish military says about 3,000 militants operate in the northern mountains, in a part of Iraq designated as Kurdish-ruled.

Although Zebari welcomed US moves to pursue PKK leaders, the rebels command sympathy among Iraqi Kurds, who see Turkey as having persecuted its own Kurdish population. Iraqis are also wary of what they regard as Turkish territorial ambitions, especially in the oil centre of Kirkuk, which was once mostly populated by ethnic Turkmens, and was included in Iraq as part of a colonial deal between Britain and France.

Zebari said the Iraqi government was not yet capable of pursuing the PKK using its own forces and had to rely on the United States.

“We have to be content with this arrangement until we complete the build-up of our own security forces to control the situation,” he said.

Turkey’s General Staff says the rebels have crossed into Turkey more frequently and in larger numbers in the past year. It has said they now number nearly 2,000 inside Turkey, carrying out attacks on military targets in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

Under Saddam Hussein’s rule, Turkey had a tacit agreement with Iraq that it could pursue the PKK into northern Iraqi territory.

Turkey has urged Iraq and its neighbours to tighten border security because of rising violence since the PKK ended a unilateral ceasefire in June last year.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 with the aim of carving out an ethnic homeland in the southeast.

—Reuters