Kurdish lawmaker urges Baghdad to cancel agreement with Turkey

Oct 13, 2007, 14:49 GMT

Baghdad - Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman Saturday hit out at Ankara reserving the right of an incursion into northern Iraq following an ambush on its soldiers, and urged Baghdad to cancel a security agreement sealed last month with Ankara.

'The security agreement has encouraged Turkey to increase threats of an incursion into northern Iraq,' Othman was quoted as telling the Voices of Iraq news agency.

Turkey had indicated last week that it might launch cross-border raids to destroy rebel Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) camps in mountainous northern Iraq, following the killing of 13 Turkish commandos and two soldiers in Turkey by members of the PKK.

Voices of iraq quoted a military source on Saturday as saying that Turkey was already massing forces along a stretch of border near Iraq, while unconfirmed media reports had said Turkish forces attacked an Iraqi village on Friday night.

However, Kurdish officials and Iraqi government spokesman Ali al- Dabagh said that Iraq would not allow Turkish troops inside its territory.

'The Kurdistan Alliance will request hosting the interior minister at a parliament session immediately after Eid al-Fitr (Muslim feast) holiday to discuss the security agreement he signed with the Turkish side,' said the Kurdish member of Iraqi's Council of Representatives.

On October 27, Baghdad and Ankara had sealed a security agreement under which Iraq committed to cooperating with Turkish authorities in hunting down PKK rebels in the north.

There had been pressure fopr occasional incursions to be an official part of the deal, but with details not disclosed, reports concerning this point were contradictory.

Some reports said the Iraqi side had agreed to cooperate but refused to grant an absolute right to Turkish troops to cross the border in hot pursuit of Kurdish rebels.

However, other reports insisted that the agreement gave Turkey a right to chase the rebels inside Iraq - amid strong denials from the Iraqi government.

Meanwhile, Othman, urged the Iraqi government to cancel the agreement, insisting that 'the approval of parliament' to such agreements was a must.

'Turkey did not honour its obligations under the agreement and hence the Iraqi government should reconsider it,' he said.

Earlier, Kurdish government leader Qader Aziz said that 'any Turkish attacks will be met with wide resistance from the (Kurdish) Peshmerga and the people.'

But on Saturday, Othman ruled out a unilateral Kurdish reaction to any Turkish incursion.

'If an incursion into Iraq's Kurdistan region occurred, any reaction will be coordinated with the central government as (the autonomous region of) Kurdistan is part of Iraq,' he said.

'The Americans will also be consulted as they are responsible for the security of Iraq's borders,' he added.

Both the Kurds and the United States have voiced concern that a Turkish operation into northern Iraq would upset Iraqi Kurdish groups and may destabilize the region, a part of Iraq that is relatively free of violence.

More than 32,000 people have been killed since the early 1980s when the PKK launched its fight for independence or autonomy for the mainly Kurdish-populated south-east.

The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by both the US and the European Union. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani had called on the PKK fighters to either leave the Kurdish lands, or denounce violence and lay down their arms.