Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Turkey opposed to Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq’

Apparently Kurdish leader Massud Barzani was wrong.

-Am

ISTANBUL: Turkey remains opposed to granting autonomy to Kurds in northern Iraq, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan said on Saturday, ruling out any change in his country’s decades-old policy on the status of the minority community.

“Turkey’s policy on this issue is the same as what it was yesterday. There is no change,” Erdogan told reporters here, the Anatolia news agency said.

He was responding to comments by Kurdish leader Massud Barzani, the head of one of the two main Kurdish factions in control of northern Iraq, that Ankara had dropped its opposition to Iraqi Kurdish autonomy.

Turkey keeps a wary eye on Iraq’s Kurds — whom it suspects of plotting to break away from Baghdad — and has warned against moves to build post-war Iraq’s administrative system along ethnic lines.

Ankara fears that advanced autonomy for the Iraqi Kurds could set an example for their restive cousins in adjoining southeast Turkey and spark instability.

Southeastern Turkey was for 15 years the theatre of heavy fighting between the Turkish army and rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) seeking self-rule in the mainly Kurdish region.

The PKK announced a unilateral ceasefire in 1999 and withdrew from Turkey, but its successor, the Kongra-gel, announced last month that it was ending the truce as of June 1. There has since been an increase in clashes in the region. afp

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_20-6-2004_pg4_3