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Category: Iraq

  • Iraqi government asks U.S. to bomb Islamist fighters as 30,000 troops flee their posts

    Iraqi government asks U.S. to bomb Islamist fighters as 30,000 troops flee their posts

    Iraqi government asks U.S. to bomb Islamist fighters as 30,000 troops flee their posts

    BY MITCHELL PROTHERO

    McClatchy Foreign StaffJune 11, 2014 Updated 6 hours ago

    ISTANBUL — Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria on Wednesday pushed their offensive south into Iraq’s Sunni Muslim heartland, capturing key crossroad towns on the highway to the capital, Baghdad, andtaking control of a critical oil refinery.

    The speedy advance of Islamic State fighters triggered recriminations in Baghdad, where Iraqi officials sought assistance from the United States to counter the advance.

    A senior Iraqi official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive politics of the matter, said Baghdad even had asked U.S. officials to consider undertaking air strikes to rout the fighters.

    So far, the official said, the Americans appeared reluctant to take that step. “They have not committed yet,” he said, adding that it “doesn’t look like” they will, either.

    Word of the request for armed American intervention came as insurgents captured the strategic city of Tikrit, took control of a critical oil refinery and power plant in the town of Baiji and pushed into the mixed Kurdish-Arab city of Kirkuk and the flashpoint city of Samara, just 70 miles north of Baghdad.

    In a move that underlined the Islamic State’s ambitions, social media accounts associated with the group triumphantly announced the end of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the demarcation of modern Middle East borders by France and Great Britain after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. The group released credible but unconfirmed footage of heavy equipment adorned with the black flag of the Islamic State destroying fences and earthen berms along the Syrian border.

    In Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, who Iraq’s current government executed in 2006, the Islamic State was receiving heavy support from local anti-government tribes under an insurgent coalition called the General Military Council. Witnesses inside Tikrit said the rebels had taken control of much of the city, which was being adorned with posters of Saddam.

    Dr. Issa Ayal, a local journalism professor, said the scene in Tikrit, the capital of Salahuddin province, was a near repeat of ISIS’ capture late Monday of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, when government soldiers and police shed their uniforms and their weapons and fled their posts ahead of the ISIS attackers.

    “They had civilian clothes and left their posts,” he said of Iraqi soldiers in Tikrit.

    The governor’s office in Tikrit fell about 11 a.m., he said. “Many members of Tikrit’s tribes loyal to the late President Saddam joined the fighters and I can see and hear them chanting Tikriti songs and chants near the governor’s office,” he said.

    He said that ISIS gunmen had halted the broadcast of a Salahuddin satellite TV channel but did not harm journalists at the station and allowed them to leave safely.

    In Baiji, which also lies in Salahuddin province, Islamic State fighters took control of the town and were poised to add one of Iraq’s most important oil refineries and pumping facilities to the substantial list of economic infrastructure captured in the past 48 hours. Security forces abandoned the facility, which is connected to a large electrical power plant, and Islamic State fighters had taken control of the area, though it remained unclear if they had entered the plant itself. Ben Lando, editor of Iraq Oil Report, a trade publication based in Baghdad, said the Iraqi government would likely shut down the pipeline feeding the facility if ISIS did take actual control.

    Embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki took to state airwaves to offer weapons to any civilians willing to fight against the quickly encroaching Islamic State, a call to arms that was aimed primarily at the Shiite Muslim militias that successfully battled Sunni groups for control of Baghdad in a sectarian war from 2006 to 2008. But how many would respond was not clear, and a key former militia leader, cleric Muktada al Sadr, suggested he would limit his response to protecting the Imam Ali Shrine in the holy city of Najaf, which is about 100 miles south of Baghdad and 200 miles south of the scene of Wednesday’s fighting.

    Meanwhile, a number of Sunni Muslim tribes in the provinces of Anbar, Nineveh and Salahuddin appeared to be joining the Islamist advance after years of tensions with the Shiite government in Baghdad.

    How the U.S. would respond to the Iraqi request for bombing strikes, first reported by The New York Times, was not immediately clear. Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby on Tuesday had gone out of his way seemingly to discourage speculation of direct U.S. involvement. “This is for the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi government to deal with,” he said.

    That response came weeks, however, after Maliki had first asked the United States for help, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

    A senior U.S. Defense Department official, confirming the report, said that Maliki first made the request around the time of his visit to Washington last October. The official described the administration’s response as cold and said Maliki had asked that the request be kept secret so that it would not appear that he was inviting the United States to return to Iraq.

    While rejecting the idea of airstrikes, the Obama administration did agree to speed up delivery of F16 fighter jets and Hellfire missiles. But the jets are not expected to arrive until September, leaving Iraq with a limited ability to attack insurgent positions from the air.

    There were reports Wednesday from the rebel-affiliated Local Coordinating Committee in Syria’s Deir el Zour province, however, that Syrian government aircraft had bombed an ISIS convoy that was moving toward Iraq. It could not be learned if the strike was at the request of the Iraqi government, which has supported Syrian President Bashar Assad in his efforts to remain in power.

     

     

    In northern Iraq, Islamic State fighters appeared to be avoiding confronting the peshmerga militia loyal to the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, which had dispatched troops from the Kurdish capital of Irbil to impose a security cordon around Kurdish areas and to reinforce peshmerga troops in the Kurdish eastern half of Mosul and further south in the Kurdish sections of the mixed city of Kirkuk. But Islamic State fighters and local Sunni tribesmen were battling for control of Arab districts.

    “We’ve fully mobilized, obviously,” said Sabaa al Barzani, a Kurdistan Regional Government security official in Irbil. “We’re sending peshmerga fighters to Mosul and Kirkuk and using them to form a protective circle around Irbil.”

    Barzani said the stream of refugees that began fleeing Mosul for Irbil had become a torrent on Wednesday.

    “We’re counting 20 cars a minute right now, and they’ve been coming all day,” he said.

     

    The International Rescue Committee estimated that at least 500,000 people had fled fighting in Mosul by Wednesday afternoon, leaving a humanitarian crisis in the making as Iraq is already struggling to house 200,000 refugees from the fighting in neighboring Syria.

     

    Reports that the peshmerga were attempting to recapture Mosul’s international airport, which fell Tuesday to the Islamic State, could not be confirmed. But the site represents a major strategic asset that would allow the Iraqi army to send troops and establish supply lines for any attempt to retake the city.

    Barzani would not comment on specifics but said that “security operations on several fronts are planned or ongoing.” A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, did confirm that Kurdish units had retaken the Rabia border crossing with Syria earlier in the day.

    ISIS stormed the Turkish consulate in Mosul at midday Wednesday and captured the consul-general, Ozturk Yilmas, a career diplomat, and 48 other staff members, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in Ankara. On Tuesday it arrested 31 Turkish truck drivers as they were delivering diesel fuel to a depot in Mosul.

    With 80 people being held, Turkey called for an emergency meeting of the NATO council. But it wasn’t clear what the government in Ankara would undertake as a response, or what support it would seek from its NATO allies. Reports in the Turkish media said ISIS had demanded a $5 million ransom for the release of the drivers. The fate of the diplomats was also unclear. A Twitter account thought to be linked to ISIS stated that the “Turks are not kidnapped. They are only taken to a safe location and until the investigation procedures are completed.”

     

    It was still unclear just how much U.S.-provided military equipment had been captured in the seizure of Mosul, but the booty no doubt totaled tons of heavy weapons. The Islamic State’s treasury also was no doubt swollen by the hundreds of millions of dollars the group’s fighters seized from government offices and banks in Mosul.

    In Washington, Lukman Faily, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States, said the Iraqi government had yet to determine how much war materiel the insurgents had captured. But he provided fresh insight into the depth of the unfolding debacle, saying that around 30,000 Iraqi forces had abandoned their posts in the ISIS onslaught. “Disappointing is an understatement,” he said.

    He also pleaded for U.S. support, saying that the Islamic State had proved to be a formidable foe. “They have been creative, aggressive, thinking outside the box, with advanced weapons and financial support,” he said. “This is not a local insurgency.”

    HANNAH ALLAM AND NANCY A. YOUSSEF IN WASHINGTON, ROY GUTMAN AND SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT MOUSAB ALHAMADEE IN ISTANBUL AND SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT MOHAMMED AL DULAIMY IN COLUMBIA, S.C., CONTRIBUTED.

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  • ‘The near future of Iraq is dark’: Warning from Muqtada al-Sadr – the Shia cleric whose word is law to millions of his countrymen

    ‘The near future of Iraq is dark’: Warning from Muqtada al-Sadr – the Shia cleric whose word is law to millions of his countrymen

    In a rare interview at his headquarters in Najaf, he tells Patrick Cockburn of his fears for a nation growing ever more divided on sectarian lines
    In a rare interview at his headquarters in Najaf, he tells Patrick Cockburn of his fears for a nation growing ever more divided on sectarian lines

    Patrick Cockburn

    The future of Iraq as a united and independent country is endangered by sectarian Shia-Sunni hostility says Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia religious leader whose Mehdi Army militia fought the US and British armies and who remains a powerful figure in Iraqi politics. He warns of the danger that “the Iraqi people will disintegrate, its government will disintegrate, and it will be easy for external powers to control the country”.

    In an interview with The Independent in the holy city of Najaf, 100 miles south-west of Baghdad – the first interview Mr Sadr has given face-to-face with a Western journalist for almost 10 years – he expressed pessimism about the immediate prospects for Iraq, saying: “The near future is dark.”

    Mr Sadr said he is most worried about sectarianism affecting Iraqis at street level, believing that “if it spreads among the people it will be difficult to fight”. He says he believes that standing against sectarianism has made him lose support among his followers.

    Mr Sadr’s moderate stance is key at a moment when sectarian strife has been increasing in Iraq – some 200 Shia were killed in the past week alone. For 40 years, Mr Sadr and religious leaders from his family have set the political trend within the Shia community in Iraq. Their long-term resistance to Saddam Hussein and, later, their opposition to the US-led occupation had a crucial impact.

    Mr Sadr has remained a leading influence in Iraq after an extraordinary career in which he has often come close to being killed. Several times, it appeared that the political movement he leads, the Sadrist Movement, would be crushed.

    He was 25 in 1999 when his father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, a revered Shia leader, and Mr Sadr’s two brothers were assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s gunmen in Najaf. He just survived sharing a similar fate, remaining under house arrest in Najaf until 2003 when Saddam was overthrown by the US invasion. He and his followers became the most powerful force in many Shia parts of Iraq as enemies of the old regime, but also opposing the occupation. In 2004, his Mehdi Army fought two savage battles against American troops in Najaf, and in Basra it engaged in a prolonged guerrilla war against the British Army which saw the Mehdi Army take control of the city.

    The Mehdi Army was seen by the Sunni community as playing a central role in the sectarian murder campaign that reached its height in 2006-7. Mr Sadr says that “people infiltrated the Mehdi Army and carried out these killings”, adding that if his militiamen were involved in the murder of Sunnis he would be the first person to denounce them.

    For much of this period, Mr Sadr did not appear to have had full control of forces acting in his name; ultimately he stood them down. At the same time, the Mehdi Army was being driven from its old strongholds in Basra and Sadr City by the US Army and resurgent Iraqi government armed forces. Asked about the status of the Mehdi Army today, Mr Sadr says: “It is still there but it is frozen because the occupation is apparently over. If it comes back, they [the Mehdi Army militiamen] will come back.”

    In the past five years, Mr Sadr has rebuilt his movement as one of the main players in Iraqi politics with a programme that is a mixture of Shia religion, populism and Iraqi nationalism. After a strong showing in the general election in 2010, it became part of the present government, with six seats in the cabinet. But Mr Sadr is highly critical of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s performance during his two terms in office, accusing his administration of being sectarian, corrupt and incompetent.

    Speaking of Mr Maliki, with whom his relations are increasingly sour, Mr Sadr said that “maybe he is not the only person responsible for what is happening in Iraq, but he is the person in charge”. Asked if he expected Mr Maliki to continue as Prime Minister, he said: “I expect he is going to run for a third term, but I don’t want him to.”

    Mr Sadr said he and other Iraqi leaders had tried to replace him in the past, but Mr Maliki had survived in office because of his support from foreign powers, notably the US and Iran. “What is really surprising is that America and Iran should decide on one person,” he said. “Maliki is strong because he is supported by the United States, Britain and Iran.”

    Mr Sadr is particularly critical of the government’s handling of the Sunni minority, which lost power in 2003, implying they had been marginalised and their demands ignored. He thinks that the Iraqi government lost its chance to conciliate Sunni protesters in Iraq who started demonstrating last December, asking for greater civil rights and an end to persecution.

    “My personal opinion is that it is too late now to address these [Sunni] demands when the government, which is seen as a Shia government by the demonstrators, failed to meet their demands,” he said. Asked how ordinary Shia, who make up the great majority of the thousand people a month being killed by al-Qa’ida bombs, should react, Mr Sadr said: “They should understand that they are not being attacked by Sunnis. They are being attacked by extremists, they are being attacked by external powers.”

    As Mr Sadr sees it, the problem in Iraq is that Iraqis as a whole are traumatised by almost half a century in which there has been a “constant cycle of violence: Saddam, occupation, war after war, first Gulf war, then second Gulf war, then the occupation war, then the resistance – this would lead to a change in the psychology of Iraqis”. He explained that Iraqis make the mistake of trying to solve one problem by creating a worse one, such as getting the Americans to topple Saddam Hussein but then having the problem of the US occupation. He compared Iraqis to “somebody who found a mouse in his house, then he kept a cat, then he wanted to get the cat out of the house so he kept a dog, then to get the dog out of his house he bought an elephant, so he bought a mouse again”.

    Asked about the best way for Iraqis to deal with the mouse, Mr Sadr said: “By using neither the cat nor the dog, but instead national unity, rejection of sectarianism, open-mindedness, having open ideas, rejection of extremism.”

    A main theme of Mr Sadr’s approach is to bolster Iraq as an independent nation state, able to make decisions in its own interests. Hence his abiding hostility to the American and British occupation, holding this responsible for many of Iraq’s present ills. To this day, neither he nor anybody from his movement will meet American or British officials. But he is equally hostile to intervention by Iran in Iraqi affairs saying: “We refuse all kinds of interventions from external forces, whether such an intervention was in the interests of Iraqis or against their interests. The destiny of Iraqis should be decided by Iraqis themselves.”

    This is a change of stance for a man who was once demonised by the US and Britain as a pawn of Iran. The strength of the Sadrist movement under Mr Sadr and his father – and its ability to withstand powerful enemies and shattering defeats – owes much to the fact it that it blends Shia revivalism with social activism and Iraqi nationalism.

    Why are Iraqi government members so ineffective and corrupt? Mr Sadr believes that “they compete to take a share of the cake, rather than competing to serve their people”

    Asked why the Kurdistan Regional Government had been more successful in terms of security and economic development than the rest of Iraq, Mr Sadr thought there was less stealing and corruption among the Kurds and maybe because “they love their ethnicity and their region”. If the government tried to marginalise them, they might ask for independence: “Mr Massoud Barzani [the KRG President] told me that ‘if Maliki pushes on me harder, we are going to ask for independence’.”

    At the end of the interview Mr Sadr asked me if I was not frightened of interviewing him and would not this make the British Government consider me a terrorist? Secondly, he wondered if the British Government still considered that it had liberated the Iraqi people, and wondered if he should sue the Government on behalf of the casualties caused by the British occupation.

    independent.co.uk, 29 November 2013

  • Turkey’s “promising” landmark meeting with Kurds’ Barzani receives mixed responses

    Turkey’s “promising” landmark meeting with Kurds’ Barzani receives mixed responses

    Kurds’ Barzani and Turks’ Erdogan have previously met, but Saturday’s meeting represents the first time that the two leaders have met in the Kurdish region of Turkey (Courtesy of the Kurdistan Regional Government)

    kurdturk

    Turkey’s meeting with Kurdish leadership this weekend posed as a promising start to tentative peace talks between the two clashing groups, according to an Agence-France Press report.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani for the first time in Turkey’s Kurdish city center of Diyarbakir in the southeast part of the country Saturday.

    The landmark meeting was designed to “kickstart” a peace process to end a decades-old conflict between the two groups, particularly in reference to Turkey’s tense relationship with the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Erdogan described his meeting with Barzani as a “historic” and “crowning moment” in overcoming the conflict.

    Erdogan’s positive perspective of the meeting and Barzani’s role in encouraging peace talks between the two groups and bringing Turkish Kurds to the negotiating table as well was echoed by other leaders in Ankara, including Energy Minister Taner Yildiz who described Barzani’s “importance in the eyes of our citizens” as “making it contribution [to the potential peace talks].”

    However, responses from the Kurdish community were mixed, with some prominent members of the community citing Barzani’s visit as “an opportunistic gesture” ahead of the March 2014 municipal elections, while others saying that his visit was motivated by “hope [for a different future].”

    Reports indicate that the historical meeting was also set in order for Erdogan to discuss a tentative energy partnership with Barzani, considered by many to be a springboard for “aggravating tensions” in the region, particularly in reference to Ankara’s relationship with Baghdad.

    Previous attempts at peacemaking between the two groups were stalled after jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan did not withdraw his fighters from Turkish soil as promised in September, accusing Ankara of “failing to keep to the terms [of the original] bargain in giving greater rights [to the Kurds].”

    Ocalan’s accussation was largely in reference to Erdogan and his Law and Justice Party (AKP)’s recent reforms that supposedly give Kurds and other groups “extra rights.” However, as indicated by Ocalan’s comments, the reforms are largely seen as inadequate and failing to give the Kurds “any constitutional recognition.”

    Kurds in Turkey have been calling for reforms from Ankara since the establishment of the country in 1923 due to the fact that the country’s constitution fails to recognize the Kurds as a distinct minority.

    While the two leaders met in an unprecedented meeting in the country’s southeast region, Turkish army officials reported that one of its convoys was attacked, allegedly by PKK rebels near the Syrian border. PKK rebels have previously used northern Iraq, the region under Barzani’s control, to attack Turks as part of their “campaign for self-rule” in southeast Turkey, but also in the world order more generally.

    Kurds have been struggling to secure their own homeland for decades with communities scattered throughout Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. As Barzani told AFP, “Having our own state is the natural right of the Kurdish people.”

    Barzani’s historical visit also follows last week’s declaration of autonomy in Syria by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). Kurdish regions in Syria have been administered by local Kurdish councils since regime forces withdrew from the region in mid-2012.

    via Turkey’s “promising” landmark meeting with Kurds’ Barzani receives mixed responses | Al Bawaba.

  • Ex-MI6 head ‘might air memoirs’ to set Iraq War record straight

    Ex-MI6 head ‘might air memoirs’ to set Iraq War record straight

    by Joseph Fitsanakis

    Sir Richard DearloveThe former director of Britain’s external spy service has hinted he might publish his personal account of the decisions that led to Britain’s entry in the Iraq War, if he is criticized in a public inquiry on the subject. Sir Richard Dearlove led the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, known as SIS or MI6, from 1999 until his retirement in 2004. He is currently on sabbatical from his post as Master of Cambridge University’s Pembroke College, in order to research and author his autobiography. The memoir is believed to be largely preoccupied with the intelligence that led to the British government’s decision to enter the United States-led 2003 war in Iraq. Sir Richard had previously indicated that he intended to make his memoirs posthumously available as a resource to academic researchers. But in an email to British tabloid The Mail on Sunday, he hinted he would consider publishing his personal account if he finds himself criticized by the Iraq Inquiry. Known in Britain as the Chilcot Inquiry, after its Chairman, Sir John Chilcot, the Iraq Inquiry was commissioned by the British government in 2009 to investigate the executive decisions that led the country to participate in the invasion of Iraq. One of the inquiry’s many goals was to evaluate the intelligence provided by MI6 to the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair. There have been rumors that the inquiry’s declassified findings, which are scheduled for publication soon, are critical of MI6’s performance and place particular blame on Sir Richard’s role in the debacle. In his email to The Mail, the former MI6 director made clear he had “no intention, of violating [his] vows of official secrecy”. But he added that he would reconsider his decision to make his memoirs available to scholars only after his death “depending on what Chilcot publishes”. The core of Sir Richard’s dispute with Chilcot is said to center on the claim, propounded by the British government in 2003, that Iraq’s armed forces were able to fire chemical weapon missiles at British troops stationed on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. This allegation, which found its way to the British press following a series of controlled leaks, largely informed the British government’s public argument in favor of joining the US war effort in Iraq. It later turned out, however, that MI6 had stressed to British government executives that the intelligence referred strictly to short-range battlefield munitions, rather than long-range weapons. Sources close to Sir Richard say he is adamant that the Chilcot inquiry should place the blame for the chemical weapons claim to Prime Minister Blair and his chief spokesperson at the time, Alastair Campbell.

    IntelNews, July 26, 2013

  • Kurd fighters from Turkey arrive in Iraq

    Kurd fighters from Turkey arrive in Iraq

    THE first group of Kurdish fighters leaving Turkey as part of a peace drive with Ankara has arrived to cheers and hugs in Iraqi Kurdistan after a gruelling week-long journey.

    “We are the first group to reach the safe area in Iraq,” said Jagar, the leader of the group of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters, which comprised nine men and six women.

    The fighters, who arrived in the Harur area about 6.00am (1300 AEST) on Tuesday, were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, light machineguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

    They were greeted with cheers by PKK members based in Iraq, who warmly hugged them and shook their hands.

    After the welcome, the apparently exhausted fighters put down their weapons and warmed themselves at a fire.

    “Our withdrawal came according to orders from the leader (Abdullah) Ocalan, as we want to open a way for peace through this withdrawal,” Jagar said, referring to the jailed chief of the PKK.

    “We faced many difficulties because of rain and snow” during seven days on the road, he said, adding that they were observed by Turkish aircraft.

    “We were getting ready to start a big fight with Turkey, but we responded to the call of our leader Ocalan and withdrew,” said Midiya Afreen, one of the group.

    “This is a new phase,” she said. “This is the phase of peace.”

    The PKK has fought a 29-year nationalist campaign against Ankara in which some 45,000 people have died, but is now withdrawing its fighters from Turkey as part of a push for peace with the Turkish authorities.

    The roughly 2000 fighters in Turkey are leaving on foot, travelling through the rugged border zone to reach safe havens in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, where they will join the thousands of fighters already present.

    Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly vowed that retreating rebels “will not be touched”, and said that “laying down weapons” should be the top priority for the PKK.

    The PKK, however, is demanding wider constitutional rights for Turkey’s Kurds, who make up around 20 per cent of the 75 million population, before disarming.

    via Kurd fighters from Turkey arrive in Iraq | The Australian.

  • Iraq Rejects Refuge for Turkey’s Kurdish Fighters

    Iraq Rejects Refuge for Turkey’s Kurdish Fighters

    By SINAN SALAHEDDIN Associated Press

    BAGHDAD May 9, 2013 (AP)

    Iraq on Thursday rejected a key element of an accord to bring an end to a long Kurdish uprising in Turkey — offering refuge to rebel fighters in country’s north.

    In March, the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, announced a deal to end a nearly three-decade conflict in turkey that has killed tens of thousands of people. The deal was reached in talks between imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and the Turkish government.

    The refuge offer came from Iraq’s Kurdish region, which enjoys limited independence from the central Iraqi government in Baghdad. Iraqi Kurds were involved in the talks with Turkey.

    The prospect of additional fighters joining the Kurdish forces in Iraq’s north could add tension to already souring relations with Baghdad. The two sides are in conflict over contested areas, including key oil-producing sectors.

    As part of the accord, the PKK rebels agreed to a gradual retreat from Turkish territory to Iraq’s Kurdish region. On Thursday, Baghdad rejected that.

    “The Iraqi government welcomes any political and peaceful settlement to the Kurdish cause in Turkey to stop the bloodshed and violence between the two sides and adopt a democratic approach to end this internal struggle,” said a statement issued by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry.

    “But at the same time … it does not accept the entry of armed groups to its territories that can be used to harm Iraq’s security and stability,” the ministry said.

    PKK, considered a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies, is believed to have between 1,500 and 2,000 fighters inside Turkey, in addition to several thousand more based in northern Iraq, which they use as a springboard for attacks in Turkey.

    To ease Baghdad’s concerns, PKK spokesman, Ahmet Deniz assured the Iraqi government that the plan would boost democracy and stability in the region.

    “The (peace) process is not aimed against anyone, and there is no need for concerns that the struggle will take on another format and pose a threat to others,” Deniz told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

    “A democratic resolution will have a positive effect on the region,” Deniz said. “We understand the concerns, but the process is related to the resolution of the Kurdish issue and won’t cause harm to anyone.”

    The statement came a day after PKK rebels started withdrawing to bases in the Iraqi mountains. It was not clear if the Baghdad government would try to stop the process, expected to take several months.

    Deniz confirmed that the PKK’s withdrawal process began on Wednesday. He gave no details on the numbers of fighters that had begun to retreat or if any had crossed into Iraq.

    Iraqi and Turkish officials were not immediately available for comment.

    PKK has sought greater autonomy and more rights for Turkey’s Kurds. The armed conflict between the two sides began in 1984.

    In addition to the dispute over developing oil resources, the Kurds and the central government in Baghdad have been in a long-running dispute over lands claimed by the Kurds, power-sharing and rights to develop other natural resources.

    Along with Sunni Arabs, the Kurds accuse Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, of amassing power in his hands and marginalizing political opponents.

    Relations between Iraq and Turkey have been strained since December, when fugitive Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi took refuge in Turkey following accusations by Shiite-led government that he was running death squads. Turkish officials rejected Baghdad’s request to hand over al-Hashemi, who was tried and convicted in absentia.

    Turkish support for Sunni-led anti-government protests and a unilateral energy deal with Iraqi Kurds has added tension to relations between Baghdad and Ankara.

    ———

    Associated Press writer Suzan Frazer in Ankara, Turkey contributed to this report.

    via Iraq Rejects Refuge for Turkey’s Kurdish Fighters – ABC News.