Middle East News
Turkey warns of "very big civil war" in Kirkuk
Jan 27, 2007, 12:55 GMT
Istanbul - Turkey warned Saturday against integrating the multiethnic city of Kirkuk, northern Iraq, into an autonomous Kurdish region.
'I fear that it could come to a very big civil war,' said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Ergodan in a television interview.
'Kirkuk belongs to all Iraqis,' he said. 'It would be wrong to give the city to only one ethnic group.'
Turkey fears that Kurdish control of the oil-rich city could lead to the creation of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq and one which is capable of surviving economically.
Erdogan called for Kirkuk to be given a special status, and said the referendum scheduled for late 2007 on the future of the city as foreseen by the Iraqi constitution, was a mistake.
The referendum should at least be postponed, he said. Resolving the problem would be an important step towards peace and for the future of the city.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Erdogan should concentrate on eradicating the murderous nationalism in his own country (most recent victim of which is the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink) instead of meddling with the affairs of Iraq and telling them whether or not to have a democratic referandum on Kirkuk.
The issue here is Kirkuk, not Turkish nationalism, or Diyarbakir. Close to 600,000 Kurds have been settled there with the intention of winning the referandum and incorporating Kirkuk into a future independent American puppet-state called Kurdistan. This was pre-planned by the West, it is their policy of domination and hegemony of the middle-East and from there domination of the world. And the Kurds are going into this with eyes wide open, knowing that their actions will win them nothing but future hostility by the people that matter in the region. Funny that until recently Diyarbakir was the self-proclaimed Kurdish capitol city, but now with the oppurtunity to take oil-rich Kirkuk, the self-proclaimed capitol of the Kurds have become Kirkuk.
If you are American, Unamused, hang your head in shame.
'If you are American, Unamused, hang your head in shame.'
If you are not, 'Awayfrom home', get off of our internet and shut your hummus hole.
quote from above: before poking their turkish noses in others business they ought to fix their own national problems. I wish we (America) would have done the same
'Close to 600,000 Kurds have been settled there with the intention of winning the referandum and incorporating Kirkuk into a future independent American puppet-state called Kurdistan. This was pre-planned by the West...'
Another off the wall middle east conspiracy theory. This one at least I hope is true. The Kurds have suffered enough, especially at the hands of their 'Muslim brothers.'
First of all, Forest, I want to congratulate you for your great capability on self-critisizing which 'unamuzed','peaceforall', and 'happy at home?!' don't have any. Bush's loaded and mostly oblivious soldiers have come from the other side of Atlantic 'to constitute a democracy in MiddleEast' . This is the biggest lie I have ever heard about. They are there only to serve the hegemony and oil rich future of USA and the west. The rest doesn't have any importance at all for Bush and other neocons.
Vive le Kurdistan, Kurds have suffered at the hands of American and your British attendants on every corner of the world not from the muslims in fact. USA uses them depravedly.
America had better reasoned for the thousands of innocent civilian deaths, and its own oblivious and poor soldiers that lost their lives for they don't know exactly why. I ask you, is this worth for some oil?
Note: Tayyip Erdogan is the master servant of imperyalism and Bush&Blair coalition at the moment. His administration has been backed by them, otherwise, he can not stay at the presidency even for a minute. Anyhow, he will not be able to keep his position in the next election in this years'end.
The day will come, when we take kirkurk and all of Northern Iraq, and wipe out all PKK Kurds.
page: 1
UnamuzedJan 28th, 2007 - 18:41:47
Erdogan's comments are completely comical.
'Kirkuk belongs to all Iraqis ... it would be a shame for one ethnic
group to own it...'
and yet... Diyarbakir and the entire Northern Kurdistan region belongs
only to the Turks?!!
Before poking their turkish noses in other's business' they ought to
fix their own national problems.
The only time turkey even approaches a neighbor (not with one of which
do they have normalized contact; Armenians, Greeks, Georgians, Syrians,
Iraqis, and Iranians are all 'suspect') is when they want to marginalize
the Kurds.
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