Turkish-Kurdish overture may establish federal Kirkuk region-MP

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: A lawmaker from the main Shiite bloc on Wednesday said the overture in Turkish-Kurdish relations might help find a compromise over the controversial issue of Kirkuk. “The Turkish-Kurdish overture might lead to finding a just and balanced solution for the Kirkuk issue by establishing it as a federal region,” MP Abbas al-Bayati from the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) told IraqiNews.com. “The Kirkuk problem has overreaching consequences affecting the domestic and regional arenas,” the lawmaker highlighted. The MP expected the meetings between Turkish and Kurdish officials in Iraq would lead to “forge agreements of security coordination to control borders and to stem the infiltration of Kurdistan’s Workers Party (PKK) into Turkey.” Turkish officials visited Baghdad on Tuesday and held talks with federal government officials and Kurdistan’s regional president, Massoud Barazani. It was the first direct talks in four years between Turkey and Barazani, president of the three-province semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Turkey has been pressing the Iraqi Kurdish administration to cut supply lines in its territory used by the PKK, which has been fighting for autonomy in Turkey, and to arrest and hand over its leaders who live across the border in Iraq. Iraqi Kurds, which have their own police and armed force, are largely responsible for security in the northern areas of the country where the PKK operates rather than U.S. or Iraqi government troops. The Tuesday meeting took place in the U.S.-protected Green Zone and lasted about two hours, an Iraqi government announcement said. Turkey’s special envoy to Iraq Murat Ozcelik was quoted as saying the talks were held in a “positive atmosphere” and that Turkey had communicated to the other side its suggestions concerning security. The PKK, branded a terrorist group by the U.S. and the European Union, has been fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey since 1984. Tens of thousands of people have been killed. Barzani and other Iraqi Kurdish officials met regularly with Turkish officials during former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s regime. But relations cooled following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion as Kurdish national aspirations skyrocketed, and the last such meetings were held in 2004. AM (I)/SR 1