Iraq will not accept a breach of its sovereignty, Iraqi Deputy PM Barham Salih told reporters on Sunday after talks with a senior Turkish delegation led by Turkey's special envoy for Iraq, Ambassador Oğuz Çelikkol. "We spoke about the perceived security threats to Turkey coming from Iraqi territory. We emphasized the need to deal with these perceived threats based on established channels between Iraq and Turkey," Salih said. For his part, Çelikkol said a number of issues have been discussed, including Ankara's growing anger at recent violence that it blames on the PKK.The PKK, an organization blacklisted by the European Union and the US as a terrorist organization as well as by Ankara, has thousands of armed members located in the mountains of northern Iraq’s de facto autonomous north.
“Iraq is our neighbor, and what happens here is important to us. We aren’t here to discuss just one matter but all the matters that concern the two countries,” Çelikkol said.
Last week, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that the central Baghdad government had finally responded to a diplomatic note delivered by Ankara more than six weeks ago concerning its ongoing unease over the presence of the PKK in northern Iraq, expressing its readiness to cooperate with the Ankara government against PKK members who use northern Iraq as a base. The aforementioned note was delivered to Baghdad on April 9. Just a day after its delivery, the National Security Council (MGK) indicated that Turkey may resort to military measures should it not receive a satisfactory answer. Just two days after an April 10 MGK meeting, Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt publicly asked the government for approval to launch a military operation.
Also last week, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül, in an interview with NTV, said Çelikkol would deliver a message from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to his Iraqi counterpart, Nouri al-Maliki, as well as certain files regarding counterterrorism efforts.
During the same interview, Gül urged Iraq and the US to eliminate bases operated by the PKK in Iraq, warning that patience in Ankara is wearing thin and reiterating that the government would back any demand by the military to stage a cross-border offensive -- a request that would require parliamentary approval.
Washington has urged Ankara to show restraint, fearing that a cross-border operation could disrupt efforts to stabilize Iraq.
“There is no such thing as ‘their terrorist is bad and our terrorist is good,’” Gül noted in the interview, emphasizing that international cooperation on terrorism means nations should work together to fight all terrorists.
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