Word: iraqi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...part, Washington wants to avoid being compelled to intervene between two friends. And, on Sunday, a U.S. diplomatic push led to the release of eight Turkish soldiers held captive by the PKK in Iraq. Iraqi Kurdish leaders said they had played a role in the release...
...also wants Washington to use its influence with Iraqi Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq, who nominally control the region from which the PKK is operating, to crack down on the guerrillas. A failure to do so could lead Turkey to send its own troops across the border in pursuit of the PKK, an outcome that the U.S. wants to avoid not only because Iraq is ostensibly America's ally as well but because the Iraqi Kurds are that war-torn nation's only economic success story. Any large-scale movement of Turkish troops into Iraq raises the chances...
Turkey for its part has stressed that any incursion would seek only to attack the PKK and that Turkey had no designs on Iraqi territory, as some Iraqi Kurdish leaders have claimed. Foreign Minister Babacan said that if Turkey does dispatch troops "it would not be an invasion" but instead would consist more of commando raids on PKK positions...
Still, Turkey's PKK troubles are part of a larger set of problems with Kurds in the region. Turkey has accused the Iraqi Kurdish administration in northern Iraq of failing to do enough to clamp down on the PKK. This week, Turkey raised the possibility of economic sanctions against northern Iraq, including restrictions on the flow of traffic and goods at a key border crossing from Turkey into Iraq, as well as cutting off electricity that Turkey supplies to the region. Turkey's biggest fear is that Iraqi Kurds are intent on establishing a separate Kurdish state on their border...
...Basra in the night, pulling back to the regional airport and washing their hands of the Shi'ite infighting that has made Iraq's second largest city ungovernable. British Defense Secretary Des Browne announced Wednesday in Baghdad that the British would hand the Basra region over to Iraqi security forces by mid-December, leaving the city to Iraqi forces that are deeply infiltrated by three warring Shi'ite factions...