Tue May 8, 2007
Iraqi Kurd leader Massud Barzani denied that he threatened to intervene in Turkey over the Kurdish minority question, while warning Ankara he would not tolerate any threats from them.
Barzani, questioned in Brussels by Euro MPs, said threats are no longer a "valid" approach.
"Do we feel threatened by Turkey? The language of threat is no longer valid today, dialogue is more constructive. We are not threatening anybody but we will not accept threats from anybody either," he said.
Last month Turkey's army chief called for a military incursion into neighbouring northern Iraq to hunt down Turkish Kurd rebels based there, despite US objections.
Army chief Yasar Buyukanit became the first such high-ranking military official to publicly argue for a cross-border operation to crack down on bases of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.
Turkey charges that several thousand PKK rebels have found refuge in northern Iraq in their 22-year struggle for self-rule in southeastern Turkey.
The Turkish media has quoted Barzani, head of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, as saying that they would meddle in Turkey's already restive, predominantly-Kurdish southeast if Ankara continued to oppose Iraqi Kurdish ambitions to attach Kirkuk to their region.
Barzani reportedly said that if Turkey "interferes in Kirkuk over just a few thousand Turkmens, then we will take action regarding the 30 million Kurds in Turkey."
In Brussels the Kurdish leader urged Ankara to seek a political solution to the Kurdish question, adding that Turkey often used the PKK as a "pretext" for its actions.
Turkey is upset by Barzani's plan to hold a referendum in the oil-rich northern Iraq city of Kirkuk.
Kirkuk, which Iraqi Kurds want to make part of their autonomous region, has a large population of Sunni and Shiite Arabs, as well as Turkmen, making for a fragile ethnic mix.
Turkey sees itself as the traditional protector of the Turkmen people who, together with the Arabs, complain of being bullied by the Kurds who make up half the population of the city and control the security services.
Barzani stressed, in his discussions in the European parliament, his refusal to postpone the referendum which he said would be carried out before the end of the year.
"Any intervention from outside would add to the complexities and create more problems in the future," he added.
However he stressed his support for "a democratic, federal and multi-party system in Iraq".
"At the same time there has to be segregation of religion from state," he told the assembled MEPs.
An International Crisis Group report last month said that a new approach is urgently needed to settle the status of Kirkuk.
"A referendum conducted against the wishes of the other communities in 2007 could cause the civil war to spread to the Kurdish region, until now Iraq's only quiet area."