Iraqi Kurdish leader holds 'positive' talks in Turkey

ANKARA, Oct 11 (AFP) - Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani held talks in Turkey Monday over the situation in war-torn Iraq and the future of Kirkuk, the ethnically volatile oil-rich city that Ankara fears may fall in Kurdish hands.
"We saw that Barzani has a positive approach on the issues we discussed," a Turkish diplomat said following Barzani's meetings with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.
The Turkish side reiterated warnings over attempts to upset the delicate demography of Kirkuk, which the Iraqi Kurds say was overwhelmingly Kurdish in the 1950s before Baghdad started an "Arabization" campaign and now claim for themselves.
"We have many times conveyed our concerns regarding Kirkuk. All that needed to be said was said again," the diplomat stressed.
Barzani heads the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), one of the two main Kurdish factions controlling northern Iraq.
Ankara is uneasy that the Iraqi Kurds are plotting to take control of Kirkuk, which also has a large population of Turkmens, an ethnic minority of Turkish descent.
Thousands of Arabs were encouraged during Saddam Hussein's 24-year rule to settle in Kirkuk and the Kurds are now trying to chase them out.
Ankara fears that Kurdish control of the area's oil resources could further strengthen the Iraqi Kurds whom it suspects of plotting to break away from Baghdad.
Such a prospect, Ankara worries, could fan separatist sentiment among its own restive Kurds in adjoining southeast Turkey.
Barzani made no statement after the talks.
Upon his arrival in Ankara late Sunday, the KDP leader had reasserted Kurdish ambitions over Kirkuk.
"I still think that Kirkuk is the heart of Kurdistan but I am open to debate here," he was quoted as saying by Anatolia news agency.
In Monday's talks, Barzani also stressed that he shared Ankara's uneasiness over the presence of Turkish Kurd rebels hiding in the mountains of northern Iraq, the diplomat said.
"Barzani underlined that they would never allow a group threatening Turkey to take refuge in Iraq," he said.