U.S. forces raided a Turkish special forces office in northern Iraq and detained 11 soldiers, Turkish officials said Saturday. A Turkish newspaper said the arrests aimed to stop a plot by Turks to kill the Kurdish governor of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
The detentions further strained ties between the longtime allies, who fell out over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
| Think how much assassinating the governor of Kirkuk would ahve strained them... |
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded the soldiers' release. A government official said some 100 U.S. soldiers detained three Turkish officers and eight noncommissioned officers in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah Friday afternoon. They were taken to Kirkuk. The U.S. forces were acting on intelligence reports that some Turks in Kirkuk were planning to assassinate the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk, the newspaper Hurriyet said. ``This is an ugly incident,'' Erdogan said. ``It should not have happened.''
| Nor should the assassination plot have happened... |
``For an allied country to behave in such a way toward its ally cannot be explained,'' he added.
After the arrests, Turkey closed the Habur border gate, the sole crossing point for aid and goods between Turkey and Iraq. Erdogan said Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was in contact with Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"Abdullah, what were you thinking?"
"Ummm... I dunno. I think it was something..." |
``We are assured (by U.S. officials) that the soldiers are safe. But we want them to be released as soon as possible,'' Erdogan said. |