RICE: KURDISH REBELS ARE "COMMON THREAT"
By Anne Gearan

The Associated Press
Nov 2 2007

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assured
Turkish officials Friday that Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq
were a "common threat" and that the United States would help Ankara
in its fight against them.

Speaking after meeting with both Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, Rice said she had emphasized that
the United States is "committed to redoubling its efforts" to help
Turkey in its struggle against the rebel fighters.

"We consider this a common threat, not just to the interests of Turkey
but to the interests of the United States as well," she said at a joint
news conference with Babacan. "This is going to take persistence and
it’s going to take commitment – this is a very difficult problem."

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further
information. AP’s earlier story is below.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the
United States, Turkey and Iraq will counter any attacks on Turkey by
Kurdish rebels operating out of northern Iraq.

She didn’t specify just what that meant in speaking with reporters
en route to diplomatic meetings in Turkey and the Middle East, and
she warned against doing anything that might worsen the volatile
situation on the Turkish-Iraqi border.

Rice was in Turkey’s capital Friday and meeting with Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other high-ranking officials as part of an
intense campaign to prevent Turkey from sending its troops across
the border into northern Iraq to fight Kurdish guerrillas.

She planned to press the U.S. case that Iraqi Kurds and Turkey should
back away from an escalating conflict. So far the U.S. has won no
public promises to stand down.

She also will try to soothe lingering irritation by Turkey over a
House committee vote last month that labeled as genocide the deaths
of Armenians a century ago at the hands of Ottoman Turks.

Turkey has complained for months about what it contends is a lack of
U.S. support against the rebels known as PKK. The Turkish government
has threatened a full-scale ground attack into northern Iraq if the
U.S. and Iraqi officials fail to do something about the rebels.

"We have a common enemy and we are going to act as if we have a common
enemy, which means that we are going to work with our Turkish allies
and the Iraqis" to have an effective way of dealing with the PKK,
Rice said Thursday to reporters traveling with her.

Raids by the rebels and other fighting have left 47 people dead in
Turkey since Sept. 29, including 35 soldiers. The skirmishes were
the latest in a conflict that dates back to 1984 and has seen nearly
40,000 people killed.

Rice rearranged a long-scheduled diplomatic visit to include stops in
Ankara. The chief U.S. diplomat was also seeing Iraqi Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki and holding a three-way meeting with Iraqi and Turkish
diplomats over the weekend.

Rice’s trip places her in the breach between important NATO
ally Turkey, the weak U.S.-backed government in Baghdad and the
self-governing Kurds in Iraq’s oil-rich north.

Rice said initial three-way cooperation could include better ways of
sharing information or means to restrict the rebels’ movement. She
did not rule out sanctions or other penalties on the PKK, but she did
not address whether the Iraqis should pursue their own military raids.

"We’ll try to talk through the various elements of a strategy, but
we really need to look for an effective strategy, not just one that
is going to strike out somehow and still not deal with the problem,"
she said.

Turkey did try on Thursday to allay fears about the extent of any
assault it would launch across the Iraq border, saying such an attack
would target guerrilla bases and not amount to an invasion.

Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said the military, if it crosses the
border, would try to avoid confronting the self-governing Kurdish
leadership in northern Iraq. Turkish leaders suspect, however, that
the administration there is assisting the PKK, or at the very least
tolerating its presence at a network of mountain camps.

Both the U.S. and Iraq governments fear a large military operation,
opening a new front in the Iraq war, would unsettle what is now the
most stable part of the country.

Turkey fears that Iraqi Kurds could set up an independent Kurdish
state and fuel separatist sentiments within Turkey.

Turkey’s military chief said last week his country will wait to decide
on a major cross-border offensive until after Erdogan meets President
Bush in Washington. Their meeting is set for Monday.

Many Turks are furious with the United States for its perceived
failure to pressure Iraq into cracking down on the PKK rebels, whose
full name is the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.

Street protesters have urged the government to send forces across
the border even if it means a deepening of the rift with the U.S.,
their Cold War ally.

The United States acknowledged this week that it has undertaken limited
military moves against the rebels after asserting for weeks that the
clash between Iraq and Turkey was a diplomatic matter.

Pentagon officials said the U.S. was flying manned spy planes over
the border area, providing Turkey with more intelligence information,
and that there are standing orders for American forces to capture
rebels they find.

Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser contributed to this report.