Word: ankara
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...response, the message from Turkey's Gul seemed to be, "Get real!" Nothing was said publicly, but Ankara apparently wants Iraq's other neighbors to understand that the world has changed, that the U.S. troops will be in Baghdad for some time to come, and that Washington will not allow the UN or anybody else to have a say in the oil-rich Arab nation's future. In other words, the nervous neighbors might as well learn to live with the new tenant next door. Thus, also, the advice to Damascus to give up its belligerent posture, and recognize that...
...Turkey wants to balance its position with the U.S., it wants to play the moderator in the region," said a journalist in the Turkish foreign minister's entourage, suggesting that Ankara is now busy trying to undo the damage caused by its refusal to allow American troops to use its territory for the invasion of Iraq...
...effort, and its foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, said Thursday that he had been promised that the Kurdish fighters would leave the city after U.S. reinforcements arrive, "within hours." Turkey has, meanwhile, sent military observers to the city - a gesture that underscores its statement that it would be "unacceptable" to Ankara if the Kurdish fighters establish a permanent presence in Kirkuk. Ankara has tens of thousands troops poised along the Iraq border, and has warned that it will send them in if the Kurdish fighters are not withdrawn from Kirkuk...
...city after having been driven out under Saddam's policy of "forced Arabization," a program of ethnic cleansing designed to reinforce Baghdad's own claims on the city. But Turkey views Kirkuk as the rightful property of Iraq's tiny Turkman minority, which has close ties to Ankara and whose historic conflict with the Kurds has at times erupted in bloodshed...
...Kurds to love. Their initial response to the suggestion of even a small Turkish buffer zone 15 miles inside Iraqi Kurdistan was to demand that Turkish troops there be placed under U.S. command - a demand rejected by Turkey, and which the U.S. has reportedly been forced by Ankara's resistance to drop. Kurdish leaders have warned that any Turkish troops in Iraqi Kurdistan would be regarded as invaders. In order to forestall the prospect for a clash between the Kurds and Turkey, the U.S. military may be inclined to seize and occupy the town early in the war. While averting...