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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (35526)	1/17/2004 11:52:38 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

America appeases Ankara over Kurds * Washington reasserts political make-up to be determined by Iraqis * Stresses that territorial integrity and unity to be maintained WASHINGTON: The United States moved Friday to temper Turkey’s concerns about Iraqi Kurds forming an ethnic-based federation in post-war Iraq after a senior Turkish military official warned the creation of such an enclave would lead to bloodshed. The State Department allowed that a decision on the political make-up of the country would be made by the Iraqis themselves, but stressed that Washington would not back down on its insistence that Iraq’s territorial integrity and political unity be maintained. And, spokesman Richard Boucher noted that Kurdish members of the US-appointed interim Iraqi Governing Council shared that view. “We’ve always been quite clear that we support Iraq’s territorial integrity and political unity,” he said. “The constitutional issues will be for Iraqis to decide but we would point out that the governing council does include Kurdish members who have expressed their own commitment to unified Iraq,” Boucher told reporters. “The process of defining this state is taking place within the context of widespread agreement on a unified Iraq with territorial integrity,” he added. Earlier Friday in Ankara, the deputy chief of staff of the Turkish military, General Ilker Basbug, warned that “if a federation is established in Iraq, particularly a federation based on ethnic roots, the future of Iraq will be very difficult and very bloody.” His remarks echoed earlier warnings by Ankara, which fears that the Iraqi Kurds, strong proponents of a federation, could expand their self-rule in northern Iraq, setting an example for their restive cousins in neighbouring Turkey. Turkey has been urging the United States not to favour the Iraqi Kurds, their war-time ally, in the shaping of post-war Iraq and the matter is expected to top the agenda of a meeting later this month in Washington between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President George W. Bush. Basbug called on Washington to make good on its promises to take action against an estimated 5,000 rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an outlawed Turkish Kurd group, who found refuge in mountainous northern Iraq prior to the US invasion of the country. Boucher said the United States continues to act against the PKK which it, along with Turkey, has designated the group a terrorist organization. “We continue to work against the PKK to make sure they can’t find any haven in northern Iraq,” he said. “There is no place for the PKK in Iraq.” —AFP Radical Shia leader against federal Iraq KUFA: Shia Muslim radical leader Moqtada Sadr hit out Friday at Kurdish demands for an autonomous region within a federal Iraq, saying they would lead only to the country’s division. “We urge unity on all Iraqis,” the firebrand cleric told worshippers at the main weekly prayers at this pilgrimage shrine just outside the central city of Najaf. “I am going to send a delegation to the Iraqis of the north - I won’t say the Kurds - to tell them that their plans will lead only to the division of Iraq,” said Sadr. Even Saddam Hussein’s regime paid lip service to the idea of Kurdish autonomy, although it tolerated only very limited self-rule within the three northern provinces which ran their own affairs under Western protection between the 1991 Gulf war and the US-led invasion last spring. However, now the main Kurdish factions have united in calling for an expanded autonomy to include the main northern oil centre of Kirkuk and parts of Nineveh and Diyala provinces. The demands have sparked clashes in Kirkuk between the Kurds, who formed the majority there before the Arabisation campaigns of Saddam’s rule, and the minority Turkmen and Sunni Arab communities. dailytimes.com.pk lurqer