ANKARA – Iraqi Kurd leader Massud Barzani said Saturday he opposes Turkey’s military campaign against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq as it will fail to permanently end the conflict.
Barzani arrived in Ankara Thursday for talks focused on Turkey’s ongoing operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“Honestly, I disapprove of all these operations … I don’t think that one can achieve the result with the military option”, Barzani told the Hurriyet newspaper.
“The fighting should happen in parliament”, he told the Anatolia news agency.
The Turkish military launched an operation in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region after a PKK attack last month killed 24 soldiers in the town of Cukurca near the Iraqi border, the army’s biggest loss since 1993.
Clashes between the PKK and the army have escalated since the summer.
In the interview Saturday, the Kurdish leader condemned the PKK for last month’s deadly attack and called on the group to cease all its military activities.
“When the PKK does that, Turkey will no longer have a pretext to pursue its military campaign”, Barzani told Hurriyet.
Barzani met with Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and was set to have talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan later Saturday.
Erdogan has already asked Barzani’s administration and Kurdish forces to play a more active role in the fight against the PKK.
Listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community, the PKK took up arms for Kurdish independence in southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives
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