22 August 2009 / ALIHAN HASANOĞLU, ARBIL
Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani has welcomed Turkey's planned steps to expand rights for its Kurdish population, echoing recent statements made by several Iraqi Kurdish officials in the past weeks.
"We are glad with developments taking place in Turkey,” Barzani told the first session of the Kurdish Regional Parliament convening after last month's election. A coalition of Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) won the parliamentary polls, although the opposition also made gains. In the presidential election, held simultaneously with the parliamentary election, Barzani was re-elected to his post.Barzani said there were attempts to undermine stability in Iraq and the Iraqi-Kurdish brotherhood in the country and said the Kurds should take steps to prevent these attempts from succeeding. He also said pre-election promises must be kept now that the elections are over. The Turkish government is working on what it calls a democratization initiative that will include reform steps to expand rights for Kurds to address their grievances and end the decades-long violent campaign of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). On Thursday, the National Security Council (MGK), bringing together Turkey's top political and military leaders, endorsed the government's initiative, saying exploratory talks with opposition parties and nongovernmental organizations on what the reform package should contain -- led by Interior Minister Beşir Atalay -- should continue.
