Kurdish PM Barzani proposes four-party talks on PKK incursions
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Iraqi Kurdish regional prime minister Nechirvan Barzani proposed on Monday four-party talks to resolve the issue of separatist incursions into Turkey -- with his government as one of the participants.
"This is a transnational issue, complicated by ethnic ties, and no party can find a solution on its own," Barzani wrote in The Washington Post, commenting on the ongoing conflict between the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Turkey.
"To this end, we propose talks among Ankara, Baghdad, Erbil and Washington," the prime minister said.
The proposal came as President George W. Bush faces crisis talks on Monday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he vies to dissuade his ally in the "war on terror" from an incursion into Iraq to attack PKK bases.
Erdogan has warned that Turkey's patience over the PKK's cross-border attacks is running out.
In Ankara Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledged to "redouble" US efforts to combat the Kurdish rebels attacking Turkey from northern Iraq, while warning against unilateral military action.
But while condemning raids by the PKK, Barzani expressed serious doubt that use of force could provide a long-term solution to the problem.
"We do not allow them to operate freely, contrary to what some have suggested," the prime minister said of the PKK rebels.
He stressed that Turkey had not been able to eradicate the PKK within its own borders, "yet some Turks inexplicably expect us to be successful with far fewer capabilities and resources."
Instead, Barzani is proposing involving the group in some kind of political process fashioned after talks with the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland or the Oslo process with the Palestine Liberation Organization that have helped those two groups abandon terrorism.
"Can such a transformation take place within the PKK?" Barzani asks in the article. "We cannot be certain. But we do know that military action will only radicalize the situation further, and violence will surely breed more violence."
The prime minister said Iraqi Kurds would continue taking "concrete steps to improve the security environment" at the border with Turkey.
"But the Turkish government needs to overcome its refusal to talk to us as neighbors," Barzani insisted.
Turkey has concentrated an estimated 100,000 troops along the Iraq border and threatened a large-scale incursion against PKK bases in Iraq
It accuses the Iraqi Kurdish leadership of harboring and aiding the separatist PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and by much of the international community.
The Iraqi Kurdish authorities also started closing offices of a PKK-linked political party, but Ankara wants Iraq to urgently close PKK base camps in its northern mountains and arrest the group's leaders.
