Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan warned Iraqi Kurds on Monday that hostility toward his country could incur a "very heavy cost" after seven separatist fighters and a Turkish soldier died in escalating clashes over the weekend in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, said in a television interview over the weekend that if Ankara interfered in northern Iraq, as it has threatened to do, Iraqi Kurds would interfere in Kurdish cities in Turkey.
"Northern Iraq, which is a neighbor to Turkey, is gravely wrong in the way it is currently acting and this could result in a very heavy cost for them afterwards," Erdogan told reporters.
Barzani has "overstepped the line," he said. "I advise them not to say words they cannot live up to and to know their place because they could be later crushed under those words."
Ankara is deeply concerned about what it sees as moves by Iraqi Kurds to build an independent state in northern Iraq, fearing this could in turn reignite separatism among its own Kurdish population in southeast Turkey.
Turkey is especially worried that Iraqi Kurds will gain control of the oil-rich but multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk after a referendum on the city's status due by the end of 2007, turning it into their new capital.
Asked about Erdogan's comments on Monday, Fouad Hussein, an aide to Barzani, denied the Iraqi Kurdish leader was threatening Ankara. But he urged Turkey to keep out of plans to settle the status of Kirkuk.
"Massoud Barzani did not wish to threaten Turkey but he intended to stress a fundamental principle and consistent policy of the Kurdish leader, which calls for non-interference in the business of others on condition of non-interference in our affairs," Hussein told Reuters in Irbil, northern Iraq.