The talks will be attended by Interior Minister Beşir Atalay from the Turkish side and Gen. Ray Odierno, the commanding general of US forces in Iraq, on behalf of the United States. The evacuation of Makhmour, a refugee camp populated by Turkish Kurds who fled Turkey in the 1990s, will be a top item on the agenda of the talks.
The meeting is part of a trilateral mechanism between Turkey, the United States and Iraq tasked with coordinating efforts of the three countries, including the regional Kurdish administration running northern Iraq, to eliminate the PKK.
Representatives from the three countries met in Baghdad and in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil on Dec. 20-22. Turkish representatives at the December talks pressed the Iraqi and US governments to take concrete measures. Atalay complained at those meetings that the trilateral mechanism was not working effectively and that although there were some achievements, progress was insufficient. Sources close to the talks said Iraqi Interior Minister Shirvan al-Vaili, also attending the December talks, promised in return to assist efforts to send Makhmour residents home. Iraqi officials attending the talks said 2,000 residents of the UN-supervised camp, out of nearly 12,000, wanted to return to Turkey. The Iraqi delegation also asked for assistance from the Turkish military and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) in the training of the Iraqi army and intelligence units.
The Ankara meeting today will set the stage for a follow-up discussion on the December meetings, and sources say the talks are now expected to produce a deal on definite measures. The camp, populated by Turkish Kurdish refugees who fled their villages in southeastern Anatolia in the 1990s at the height of Turkey’s military campaign against the PKK, is now believed to be a recruiting pool for the PKK and thus Ankara has been actively seeking its closure. Ankara sees the return of Turkish Kurdish refugees from the Makhmour camp in northern Iraq as the first in a series of steps to finish off the PKK.
In addition to Atalay, officials from the Foreign Ministry, the General Staff and MİT will also attend the talks. There was, however, little information on Odierno’s arrival as US officials in Ankara were tightlipped on his schedule.
