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US, Turkey discuss ridding Iraq of Kurd terrorists

By Mark Bentley

ANKARA, July 19 - The United States and Turkey are discussing ways to get rid of
Kurdish terrorists holed up in northern Iraq as the two NATO allies try to end a
diplomatic crisis over Turkey's role in the troubled region.

U.S. ambassador to Turkey Robert Pearson said on Saturday a visit to Ankara by
Washington's top soldiers in Iraq and Europe had bolstered their strong military ties
which were severely shaken by the arrest of 11 Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq early
this month.

''The two (generals) discussed with the General Staff further information about a
coordinated approach to eliminating the PKK/KADEK terrorists in northern Iraq,''
Pearson told reporters in Ankara after the departure of Central Command chief General
John Abizaid.

Turkey has stationed thousands of its soldiers just inside Iraq since the 1991 Gulf
War in a controversial deployment it says is critical to stopping hundreds of PKK and
KADEK terrorists returning to mount attacks on Turkish targets.

The soldiers' presence has done little to defuse diplomatic tensions first sparked by
Turkey's refusal in March to allow U.S. soldiers to invade Iraq from its southern
border.

Some local newspaper reports say Turkey has struck a secret deal with the United
States to withdraw its soldiers from northern Iraq, but Ankara has said that would
only be possible once the mountainous area is rid of Kurdish terrorists.

PARTIAL AMNESTY

Turkey has fought a decades-long war against the terrorists in the southeast of the
country in which 30,000 people have died.

Pearson indicated that a European Union-inspired law currently before Turkey's
parliament, which would award a partial amnesty to Kurdish terrorists, would be
central to efforts to eradicate the terrorists from northern Iraq.

Abizaid was joined in Ankara by NATO commander U.S. General James Jones for talks with
Turkish generals heading the second largest standing army in NATO.

Turkey also fears that the close relations the United States enjoys with a Kurdish
administration controlling northern Iraq could pave the way for the establishment of
an independent Kurdish state. Turkey believes such a state would pose a threat to the
Turkish Turkmen minority in Iraq, with whom Ankara has close ethnic ties.

Washington says it will not allow that to happen.

Five Kurds now sit on a U.S.-backed 25-member council governing Iraq with U.S.
officials.

Turkey says the one seat held by the Turkmen, an ethnic group in northern Iraq of less
than one million, is insufficient because they deserve special protection.