BAGHDAD, 6 November 2003 — The head of Iraq’s US-backed governing council said yesterday he would visit Turkey, Syria and Iran this month to try to improve strained relations with the country’s neighbors.
Jalal Talabani, the current holder of the council’s rotating chairmanship, said he would travel to Turkey on Nov. 19 to discuss security and other issues but added the question of Turkey sending troops to occupied Iraq had been “closed.”
“The Turkish president and Turkish prime minister have announced that the issue of sending forces has been closed,” Kurdish leader Talabani told a news conference in Baghdad.
“I will head to Turkey to clear the air... We want excellent relations with our neighbor Turkey,” he said, adding that security would be one of the issues on the agenda.
Turkey’s Parliament last month approved government plans to send troops to Iraq, where US-led occupying forces and Iraqis cooperating with them face daily attacks.
But the governing council, a body of Iraqi leaders set up by the occupying powers following the war that ousted Saddam Hussein in April, promptly voiced opposition to the plan.
Kurds in northern Iraq have tense relations with Turkey, which has a large, restive Kurdish minority. But leaders from other parts of Iraq also oppose the troop plan, saying neighbors have too many interests in Iraq to stay neutral.
Talabani did not give dates for the visits to Iran and Syria.
Tensions with other neighbors rose after ministers from the six states around Iraq met in Syria last weekend to discuss security in the country but did not initially invite their Iraqi counterpart.
He declined to take up a last-minute invitation.
Talabani said Syria had insulted Iraq by not issuing a clear invitation to Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.
Many Arab states are reluctant to deal with the governing council as they do not want to be perceived as legitimizing the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Second Border Post: Turkey wants to build a second border post with Iraq near the village of Ovakoy, about 15 kilometers from its existing crossing at Habur, Ankara’s ambassador in Washington said.
“We are discussing it with US authorities and with the Iraqis,” Osman Faruk Logoglu told reporters in Washington.
“The Kurds are in control of the area, or they think they are in control,” he said, referring to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) which imposes taxes on trucks crossing at Habur.
The ambassador said that opening a second border, created through direct talks between Ankara and Baghdad, “would undermine their sense of military preeminence in the area.”
“The duties paid at any gate belong to all Iraqis and must go to the central Iraqi treasurer,” Logoglu said.
“The US wants to bring a uniformed mechanism of control on all borders and try to unlock established groups who have control. That is going to need a little more time,” he said.
