Friday, May 2, 2008

ANKARA - A Turkish delegation comprised of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's chief policy advisor and Turkey's special envoy for Iraq departed for Baghdad yesterday for meetings with central Iraqi government officials as well as Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.

Foreign Minister Ali Babacan told a joint press conference with his counterpart from Bosnia and Herzegovina that the Turkish officials – Ahmet Davutoğlu and Murat Özçelik – whose trip was not officially announced beforehand due to security reasons, will meet with the Iraqi president, prime minister, parliament speaker and Iraqi groups including those in northern Iraq.

Babacan avoided openly saying that the delegation would meet with Barzani, leader of the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in northern Iraq.

A spokesman for the Iraqi government, Ali al-Dabbagh, told an Iraqi radio station yesterday that the Turkish officials planned to meet with Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in the north.   The talks in Baghdad will focus on Turkey's proposal to establish a joint mechanism to be chaired by the prime ministers of the two countries in the ccompany of a few ministers for strategic dialogue, Babacan said.

He reiterated that dialogue with the administration in northern Iraq depended on strong and concrete steps to combat the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

“If they [Iraqi Kurdish leaders] manage to put distance between them and the PKK and assume a strong position through concrete steps this situation will undoubtedly influence the quality and density of our dialogue with the local administration in the north,” he added.

Babacan said Turkey wanted the PKK issue to be removed from the agenda of relations with Iraq. 

“There is no room for terrorist organizations in today's Turkey and Iraq of the future. Everyone should understand this well.”

In the meantime, President Abdullah Gül yesterday met with Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi in Ankara and the fight against the PKK came up during the talks. Gül said he held a comprehensive meeting with al-Hashimi where Turkish-Iraqi relations were broadly discussed. He underlined that energy was one of the most significant dimensions of bilateral relations.