|
 ANKARA
(Combined Sources) — Turkey will serve as the guarantor of
Iraq’s territorial integrity and political unity, the Turkish
government said on Tuesday, signaling Ankara’s growing role in
the war-torn country’s affairs.
A
statement issued by Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said Turkey was
against any kind of undermining of Iraq’s territorial integrity
and political unity.
The declaration comes days after Turkey hosted trilateral talks
in Ankara with US and Iraqi officials to discuss closer
cooperation in fighting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Northern
Iraq.
Turkey’s military forces have been fighting in Iraqi since the
country’s legislature gave the government a mandate to launch
cross-border incursions into Northern Iraq in October 2007 and
extended it again in 2008.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 for liberation from Turkish
oppression and the establishment of an ethnic homeland in
southeastern Turkey. It’s feared that the Kurdish region in
Northern Iraq may seek independence from an already fractured
Iraq, struggling to keep itself together as fissures between its
Kurds, Shiites and Sunis deepen.
Underlying the frictions are larger questions about whether
Kurds, who make up a fifth of Iraqis, can repair deeply strained
ties with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad as Kurds assert rights to the
oil-producing Kirkuk region and other Kurdish areas lying
outside current borders of their relatively peaceful region.
“Turkey can no way support any act that could harm Iraq’s
territorial integrity, political unity and stability,” the
statement said, stressing that Ankara was among the countries
that attach the most importance to Iraq’s political unity,
territorial integrity and economic welfare.
The United Nations earlier in July, urged Iraqi Kurds not to
push for a referendum on bringing Kirkuk into Kurdistan, warning
such a vote would ignite a war.
The oil rich region is at the heart of a power struggle pitting
the Iraqi government in Baghdad against the largely autonomous
Kurdistan region to the north. The Kurdish Regional Government
(KRG) is also pushing ahead with an aggressive strategy for
exploiting their own oil and gas fields, pitting them against
the Iraqi Oil Ministry.
The simmering row between Kurds and Arabs over land and oil is
seen as a major threat to Iraq, as the sectarian violence that
nearly tore Iraq apart in 2006 and 2007 recedes.
“To support the political process in Iraq, Turkey has been in
mutual contact, consultation and cooperation with the Iraqi
government regarding all initiatives towards the Iraqi
opposition groups,” the statement said.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry also said Turkey was attaching
great importance to its cooperation with the Iraqi authorities.
But that cooperation does not come free. Turkey Wednesday
reiterated that Iraq must do more to eliminate the PKK in
Northern Iraq. Iraq, in turn, has pledged to help Turkey and the
United States in efforts to combat the PKK until the liberation
movement is eliminated. |
