ISTANBUL, 8 September 2003 - Turkey urged the US and the Iraqi leadership yesterday to clarify whether its soldiers would be welcome in Iraq following hostile remarks by a top Iraqi Kurdish official, Anatolia news agency reported.
Iraq’s new Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari angered Ankara when he said last Friday that the possible military involvement of Turkey or other neighboring countries would further destabilize the already turbulent country. “Zebari says they do not want Turkish soldiers, while the United States, which controls Iraq, wants them. This contradiction must be cleared up. Do you want them or not?” Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin told reporters, according to Anatolia.
Eager to mend fences over its failure to back the war, Ankara is willing to send up to 10,000 troops to Iraq, but it has yet to take a formal decision.
Demo in Kirkuk: Some 5,000 people demonstrated yesterday in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk to demand the release of Sheikh Hatam Al-Assy Al-Obeidi, the head of a powerful tribe arrested last month by US troops on suspicion of abetting sabotage of fuel pipelines. The protesters also called for the departure of the city’s Kurdish governor, Abderrahman Zankane, and new elections. “Kirkuk is a city for all Iraqis and not only the Kurds,” they cried.
