WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will discuss ways to counter Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq when they meet in Washington next week, the White House said on Tuesday. Turkish officials had already gone public with Monday’s meeting, which comes amid concerns about a possible Turkish military incursion into Iraq against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.Bush and Erdogan will discuss “joint efforts to counter the PKK,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. “We have a joint desire, a joint need to make sure that the PKK is eradicated, that they are stopped,” she said.
| I think it's going to take more than a joint statement. The Turks are unhappy and they want the PKK stomped, and the Iraqi Kurds, as good friends as they are, won't do it. So it'll have to be us. |