ANKARA - Turkish Daily News
TDN- Turkey said it remained sensitive on the status of Kirkuk, an oil-rich city in northern Iraq, and it would not allow any fait accompli in the ethnically-mixed area whose control is contested among Iraqi Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs. Ankara also signaled it would not object to a federal administration for Iraq, provided that the country`s territorial and political integrity was maintained.
"We have been following very closely what is going on in Iraq," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Monday to reporters. "Our sensitivities especially over Kirkuk are known to everybody. Everybody knows that any fait accompli in the area will not be tolerated and that there is a very big sensitivity. We have let everyone know of that."
The foreign minister`s remarks came after news reports in U.S. media that Iraqi Kurds are advancing in northern Iraq to reclaim lands which they said belonged to them, transforming the demographic and political map of northern Iraq. A separate report indicated Kurdish-Israeli cooperation in the region.
Oil-rich Kirkuk is home to a sizable Turkmen community, with whom Turkey shares close ethnic ties. Kurds regard Kirkuk as a Kurdish city and want to reverse Saddam Hussein`s "Arabization" policy which forced Kurds from their homes, replacing them with mostly Shi`ite Muslim Arabs.
But Turkmens insist they are the original inhabitants of Kirkuk.
Gul was speaking after talks with Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITC) leader Farouq Abdullah Abdurrahman at the Foreign Ministry and hours before an Iraqi Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), arrived in Ankara for talks.
He is expected to hold talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul on Tuesday.
Shift in Iraq policy?
With only days left for a planned transfer of authority to the Iraqi government to formally take place, Talabani is expected to tackle issues concerning the future administration of Iraq, some of which have been a matter of close interest for Turkey.
For a long time, Turkey has expressed discontent with a federal regime in the neighboring country, fearing this would give the Iraqi Kurds populating the bordering northern region the free hand to eventually pursue aspirations to create an independent state, a development that could have repercussions inside Turkey`s territory as well.
A Kurdish leader, head of the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), also running a part of northern Iraq, said on Saturday that Turkey had recently dropped that objection.
"[They] told us Turkey was not opposed to the granting of federal status to Iraqi Kurdistan within the structure of a unified Iraq," NTV television quoted Masoud Barzani as saying on Saturday.
He said the Turkish message had been conveyed during a recent meeting by Ambassador Osman Koruturk, Turkey`s coordinator for Iraq, Barzani said.
"These are not quite true," Gul said, when asked to comment on reports of policy change. But he said it would be the people of Iraq who would decide on the future of the country.
"Our desire is that Iraq`s territorial and political integrity be preserved, people of Iraq attain peace and stability and all segments of Iraqi society get their share of the riches of Iraq," he said.
"It will be the people of Iraq who will decide on what kind of an Iraq will emerge," he went on, warning that steps that could later trigger division of the country would be dangerous.
Diplomatic sources quoted by Anatolia news agency have said that Turkey would not object to a "formation" in the north, provided that such a formation remained within a territorially intact Iraq and that this is clearly stipulated in the Iraqi constitution, which has not yet been drafted.
Iraq`s territorial integrity remains as important as it was in the past, said the sources.
According to the same sources, this message had been conveyed to Barzani and Talabani was also due to receive the same message when he held talks in Ankara.