BAGHDAD: Turkey’s president yesterday called for greater cooperation from Iraqi leadership in preventing Kurdish rebels from launching cross-border attacks as he made the first visit to Iraq by a Turkish head of state in more than 30 years.
Abdullah Gul became the latest in a series of foreign dignitaries visiting Iraq. Turkey has staged several cross-border airstrikes against rebel targets and is pressing Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government to stop rebels from launching cross-border attacks on Turkey from their bases in northern Iraq.
Gul called for greater cooperation from leaders in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.
“The time has come to remove the element that is a source of trouble,” he said during a joint news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd.
“We need to engage in a joint struggle to completely eradicate terrorism,” he said. “A comprehensive cooperation is required.”
Talabani said the removal of the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, was in Iraq’s interest as well and called on the rebels to lay down their arms. “Either they will lay down arms or they will leave our territory,” he said.
Gul was welcomed at Baghdad International Airport by Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd.
Tensions escalated after Kurd rebels killed about two dozen Turkish soldiers in attacks last October.
The concerns place the United States in an awkward position with its NATO ally Turkey due to the US position in Iraq. Turkey refused to allow American troops to cross the Turkish border into Iraq during the illegal March 2003 invasion, forcing the US to rely on a single route of attack from Kuwait to the south.
But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he would be receptive to allowing US troops to leave Iraq through Turkish territory if President Barack Obama’s administration asks permission, CNN reported on Sunday.
