Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Turkey will wait for U.S. to quell rebels

By Times Wires
Published October 21, 2007

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Turkey expects the United States to act against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq but will take its own measures if it sees no results in the fight, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

In northern Iraq Saturday, thousands of Kurds packed the streets of a border city to protest a threatened Turkish incursion and to warn they would defend their territory.

Public anger is high in Turkey over a recent spate of guerrilla attacks in the southeast as well as a perception that the United States has failed to back Turkey in its fight with the Kurdistan Workers Party, known by its Kurdish acronym PKK, even though Washington lists the movement as a terrorist group.

Turkey has threatened to cross the Iraqi border to try to wipe out Kurdish rebel bases, arguing it has the right to fight terrorism. The United States and Iraq oppose such unilateral action, fearing it could destabilize northern Iraq, the most stable part of the country.

"We have expectations mainly from the U.S. more than Iraq. We want the coalition forces - mainly the U.S.- to take a step here," Erdogan told private TV channel Kanal 24 Friday.

Erdogan said he hoped to reach a consensus with Washington regarding a possible military campaign during his trip to the United States on Nov. 5, when he is to meet U.S. officials including President Bush.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, meanwhile, criticized Syria for supporting Turkey's threat. Talabani said in an interview that President Bashar Assad of Syria had crossed a "red line" by speaking approvingly of Turkey's threat. The interview with Talabani, himself a Kurd, was published Saturday in the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.

Information from the Associated Press and the New York Times was used in this report.

[Last modified October 21, 2007, 01:53:23]