April 28, 2008

A long-awaited meeting between Turkish officials and Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of northern Iraq's largely autonomous regional Kurdish administration, will take place before the end of this spring, a high-level Turkish official has said.

Remarks by the official came within days of a meeting of Turkey's influential National Security Council (MGK) that paved the way for talks between Ankara and Iraqi Kurdish groups.

Last Thursday, Turkey's top political leaders and military commanders discussed relations with neighboring Iraq and gave the green light for talks with Iraqi Kurds after refusing for several years to engage in dialogue with Kurdish groups on suspicion that they supported the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The high-level official declined to elaborate on who Nechirvan Barzani's Turkish counterpart would be in the upcoming meeting; yet, as of yesterday Falah Mustafa, director of foreign relations for the regional Iraqi Kurdish government, was quoted as saying that Barzani and Turkey's special envoy to Iraq, Murat Özçelik were expected to meet soon "for discussing some political, economical and cultural issues."

"This meeting was supposed to take place during Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani's visit to Baghdad. However the meeting has been delayed due to technical reasons," Mustafa was quoted as saying by the Peyamner Web site in remarks delivered to the Asharq Alawsat newspaper. Peyamner is affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, who is president of the Iraqi Kurdish administration and also Nechirvan Barzani's uncle.

Massoud Barzani, who has a long history of angering Ankara with remarks interpreted as implicit support for the PKK, has softened his usually harsh tone while describing the state of relations with Turkey in recent speeches -- particularly after a landmark visit to Turkey by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in early March.

Last week, speaking about his recent contacts in Baghdad with the Iraqi central government, Nechirvan Barzani said he originally planned to have talks with Turkish officials while in Baghdad. Since Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was abroad, the planned talks could not take place, he added, without elaborating on which Turkish officials he would have met with. "We want good relations with neighboring countries. We especially want better relations with Turkey," Barzani said.

"Our urgency for meeting with Iraqi Kurdish officials is not solely related to the necessity of holding a common stance against the PKK and convincing them to come to the same point as the central Iraqi government," the high-level Turkish official, who requested anonymity, told Today's Zaman.

"At the moment hundreds of Turkish companies are doing business in northern Iraq; however, none of those companies are of a size able to get involved in the huge energy business. But with an energy hub role, Turkey is eager to play a major role in the transportation of Iraqi oil and gas through northern Iraq. Such cooperation is related to Turkey's willingness to have good-neighborly relations with all of Iraq," the official added.

The MGK statement had noted on Thursday that prospects for the deepening of bilateral cooperation with Iraq, particularly in the field of energy, were discussed at the meeting.