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| Turkey Urges Iraq's Kurds to Take Actions Against PKK |
| 2008-05-10 |
| Turkey expected the regional administration in northern Iraq to "take concrete steps" to end the presence of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported on Friday. "Our expectation is that the regional administration will distance itself further away from the PKK and take concrete steps to end its presence in northern Iraq," Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan was quoted as saying. Babacan said more frequent high-level contacts with the regional administration hinged on a shift in its attitude toward the PKK. "The further they go on these issues, the better our dialogue (with the regional administration) would get," he added. "This is a whole new development that we are talking these issues with the regional administration face to face. And if we see concrete progress in time, that would certainly make things much easier for everyone," Babacan said. Noting that the PKK no longer had the support of the region's people, Babacan said "I cannot imagine how an organization can endure when it is denounced by the Arab world, the Middle Eastern countries, the central Iraqi government, Europe and the U.S. as well as the regional administration in Iraq's north." Ankara has decided to intensify its dialogue with the local Kurdish administration in the northern part of Iraq over the PKK issue. A group of Turkish officials have recently had what the Turkish minister described as "first direct contacts" in north Iraq. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |