ANKARA - Iraqi National Congress (INC) Chairman Ahmed Celebi met on Wednesday with Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ugur Ziyal.
Following the meeting which lasted for about an hour, Celebi thanked Turkey for its support to democracy in Iraq and said that Ziyal and he discussed Turkish-Iraqi relations in the meeting.
Diplomatic sources said that Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Jalal Talabani was expected to come to Ankara on Thursday within the scope of his visit which was earlier scheduled.
Talabani's visit to Turkey which was scheduled before detention of Turkish soldiers in Iraq is important upon some allegations which said that he was involved in this incident.
Talabani told the A.A correspondent on Wednesday that they were not involved in the incident regarding detention of Turkish soldiers in Iraq and stated that allegation which said that they wanted detention of Turkish soldiers was baseless.
Stating that U.S. soldiers acted alone, Talabani said that all U.S. soldiers who were involved in this incident came from Kirkuk and those soldiers did not earlier inform them about the incident.
Talabani said that they had not wanted detention of Turkish soldiers and they had not wanted to see those soldiers in that condition and stated that Turkish soldiers were their guests.
He said that they invited Turkish soldiers there and added that they told U.S. officials that what they did regarding the issue was wrong.
(EÖ-AÖ) 09.07.2003