RICE FACES TOUGH TALKS ON TURKEY VISIT
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Last Updated: 31/10/2007 14:39
Turkey will push US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week
to follow through on promises to help eradicate Kurdish rebels in
northern Iraq but experts say her hands are tied.
Ms Rice arrives in Ankara on Friday for talks with Turkey’s leaders,
before going to Istanbul for a meeting of Iraq’s neighbors and major
powers that is also expected to be dominated by tensions between Iraq
and Turkey.
"I can’t imagine what she is going to be able to do in terms of pulling
a rabbit out of the hat that would enable her to leave claiming that
some progress had been made," said Mark Parris, a former US ambassador
to Turkey.
I can’t imagine what [Ms Rice] is going to be able to do in terms
of pulling a rabbit out of the hat that would enable her to leave
claiming that some progress had been made Former US ambassador to
Turkey Mark Parris Turkey has threatened a military incursion into
northern Iraq, from where Kurdish rebels have launched attacks,
but has so far heeded Washington’s call for restraint.
Washington fears an incursion by Turkey – a Nato ally and key conduit
for supplies to US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan – would further
destabilize an already volatile region.
Ms Rice has promised unspecified "concrete action" and is prodding
Iraq’s government, particularly the Kurdish regional authorities
in northern Iraq, to curb the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, by
closing its bases and arresting leaders.
"We are looking to the Iraqi government to act, to act to prevent
terrorist attacks, and ultimately to act to dismantle that terror group
that’s operating on their territory," State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack said.
But while Ms Rice has promised US action and urged the Iraqis to do
more, defence officials have made clear there is no appetite for US
military action against the PKK.
Ms Rice’s visit coincides with increasingly anti-US sentiment in Turkey
and residual anger after a resolution passed by a US congressional
committee this month that called the 1915 massacre of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks a genocide.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is set to meet President George
W. Bush in Washington next week and Ms Rice’s sessions in Turkey are
aimed at smoothing out problems before then.