ANKARA - Turkey on Wednesday welcomed the election of former Kurdish fighter Jalal Talabani as president of Iraq, a landmark move analysts said could dilute Kurdish ambitions for independence and ease Ankara's concerns.
Turkey has long worried that Iraqi Kurds may capitalize on their post-war gains to break free of Baghdad, and news of Talabani becoming Iraq's first freely elected head of state were greeted here with calls from Turkish leaders for the preservation of the conflict-torn country's territorial integrity.
"Talabani is an experienced politician. He is someone who values Iraq's integrity. Therefore I congratulate him," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Asked whether he was worried that Talabani might use his presidential powers to press for priviliges for the Kurds, Gul said Talabani is "an Iraqi above all else."
"I am confident (the nation's) Iraqi identity ... and the unity of the country will be strengthened" by Talabani's presidency, he said.
"The primary objective of the head of state should definitely be to preserve the unity and integrity of his country," Gul told reporters in Dubai.
In Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped Talabani's election would push the democratic process in Iraq forward and allow a unified Iraq to take its place in the international community.
"Undoubtedly, the desired result is an Iraq where no ethnic or religious factions claim sovereignty over each other -- an Iraq where ... Kirkuk has special status and belongs to all Iraqis," he said, referring to the oil-rich northern city many see as the capital of a future independent Kurdish state.
Turkey is categorically opposed to such a state on its doorstep, fearing it may set a destabilizing example for its own restive Kurds in the country's southeast.
It has repeatedly warned Iraqi Kurdish leaders against attempts to seize control of Kirkuk.
Analysts here say Talabani's election will play into Ankara's hands by eroding the Kurdish desire for independence.
"The election of a Kurd as head of state will freeze, at least for a while, (Kurdish) plans to break free and set up an independent state," Mustafa Aydin, an international relations expert at Ankara University, said.
"The Kurds will not think about breaking away from the Iraqi state at a time when they aspire to run the very same state," he told the NTV news channel.
Ankara, in return, must soften its harsh rhetoric towards Kurdish leaders and open the way for reconciliation after a lengthy war of words over suspected Kurdish designs in northern Iraq, said Beril Dedeoglu, from the international relations department at Istanbul's Galatasaray University.
"Talabani is more open to dialogue and more soft-spoken" than his chief rival Massoud Barzani, with whom the new Iraqi president shared control of northern Iraq, Dedeoglu told AFP.
"If Talabani favours his country's unity during his tenure, Turkey will say, 'Iraq is our neighbour and we should get on well with each other'. There would be grounds for increasing cooperation," she added.
04/06/2005 13:35 GMT