ANKARA, 20 November 2003 — The head of the Iraqi Governing Council, Jalal Talabani, said yesterday that Baghdad was ready to mend fences with Turkey, following tensions over a bungled plan for the deployment of Turkish forces in war-torn Iraq.
The senior Iraqi leader also gave assurances that Iraq would not allow its soil to be used for terrorist activities against Turkey and invited Turkish busisnesmen to invest in the rebuilding of his country.
Speaking after talks here with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Talabani said both sides wished to improve their troubled ties.
“We... expressed our desire for extending and improving and developing all kinds of relations with Turkey — political, economic, trade, security and culture,” Talabani told reporters.
He said Erdogan had “promised that he will side with the Iraqi people and will help us to reconstruct Iraq and rebuild infrastructure.”
Earlier this month, Turkey abandoned plans to send troops to Iraq after Washington, which was seeking Ankara’s military help, failed to overcome the Iraqi leadership’s unremitting opposition to a Turkish deployment.
The US-appointed Governing Council has argued that military involvement from neighboring countries may interfere with domestic politics and impede already fragile reconstruction efforts in their turbulent country.
The Iraqi Kurds, who have long had stormy ties with Ankara, were particularly hostile, worried that Turkey, which borders their homeland in northern Iraq, could attempt to thwart their postwar political gains.
Ankara, on the other hand, was hoping to win a say in the shaping of Iraq’s post-war system, in which it fears the Iraqi Kurds may obtain leverage for future independence.
“We think that the decision of Turkey is very wise and in the interests of both people,” Talabani said, underlining that security in Iraq should be ensured by Iraqi forces.
Another issue dominating the talks were armed Turkish Kurd rebels who fought a 15-year war for self-rule in Turkey’s southeast and who are currently hiding in mountainous northern Iraq.
Earlier this week, the rebels announced that they would no longer fight Turkey, but said they would keep their guns for self-defense.
Unimpressed with the announcement, Ankara has made clear that it still considers the rebels to be a threat and is pressing the United States to crak down on them.
But, Talabani, whose Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) is one of the two main Kurdish factions controlling northern Iraq, pledged yesterday that the rebels would not be allowed to use Iraqi territory to threaten Turkey.
“We are now declaring that new Iraq, democratic Iraq, will not permit any group to use Iraqi ground against Turkey or other neighbors of Iraq.
“We are against all terrorist groups which are working in Iraq,” he said.
Talabani also called on Turkish businessmen to take part in the reconstruction of Iraq, a majority of which, he said, was secure.
“Nowadays what we have in our authority, we are ready to use it for encouraging Turkey and Turkish firms to come to work in Iraq,” he said.
A senior Turkish official said that the Iraqi delegation had requested Turkish help in rebuilding highways, government buildings and houses, and that the two sides had expressed desire to open a second border crossing.
Talabani, who is accompanied by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and other senior officials, was also scheduled to meet with foreign ministry officials and Turkish businessmen before wrapping up his visit today.
