Last-ditch talks fail to produce result

A delegation of Iraqi officials having talks in Ankara in an attempt to avert a Turkish incursion to hit the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) failed to offer satisfactory proposals to deal with the terrorist group, Turkish officials said, dealing a serious blow to hopes that diplomacy could prevent military action.

A Turkish diplomat close to the talks described the Iraqi proposals as "unsatisfactory." Further talks are expected to be held today, but there was little hope on the Turkish side for a breakthrough.
Parliament passed a motion last week authorizing a cross-border operation into northern Iraq to hit the PKK bases there in response to a recent surge in PKK attacks on military and civilian targets. As the Turkish and Iraqi officials sat for talks in Ankara, the military continued to send troops to the border, and warplanes attacked suspected PKK positions in the mountainous parts of the border provinces of Siirt, Hakkari and Şırnak.
Turkish leaders have repeatedly said the era of verbal commitments was over, pressing for concrete steps from the Iraqi and US side against the PKK in northern Iraq. In televised remarks yesterday, government spokesman Cemil Çiçek said Turkey wants Iraq to hand over all members of the PKK, adding that Ankara has given Baghdad a list of wanted PKK terrorists. Çiçek also said the air forces had hit targets in northern Iraq but that there had been no full land incursion.
It was not immediately clear what the Iraqi delegation offered, but Turkish officials earlier said what they would say would be of crucial importance in determining the future course of action. "These talks are make-or-break talks," said a Turkish diplomat speaking ahead of the meetings. "This is the last chance to resolve the issue through talks before resorting to a possible cross-border operation."
The Turkish delegation in the talks, led by both Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and Interior Minister Beşir Atalay, and the Iraqi delegation, led by Defense Minister Abdul-Qader Jassim and Minister of State for National Security Sherwan al-Waili, held the first round of talks at the Foreign Ministry.
The Iraqi delegation included Iraq’s intelligence chief and representatives of the two major Kurdish parties in northern Iraq as well as a US military officer.
“We came with concrete steps, concrete proposals,” the Anatolia news agency quoted Jassim as saying after his arrival Thursday, in apparent response to Babacan’s Tuesday remarks.
Speaking after a break between the two rounds of the talks, Mohammed Askeri, a spokesperson for the Iraqi Defense Ministry, told reporters that talks produced “positive” results. “Very important talks are under way. There are positive results, everything is happening as planned,” Askeri told journalists.
Meanwhile, Babacan went to General Staff headquarters for consultations, and Atalay, accompanied by Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ertuğrul Apakan, went to the Prime Ministry, where he was assumed to have briefed and consulted with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over the telephone as the latter was in Romania for an official visit.
During the same hours, some of the Iraqis returned to their Ankara lodgings in a police guesthouse, where they were hosted for security reasons. While the Iraqi delegation remained there before heading to the Hilton Hotel, US Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Nancy McEldowney visited the guesthouse accompanied by a US military delegation said to have come from Iraq. The US delegation made no comment to reporters.
Turkey has amassed up to 100,000 troops along the mountainous border in preparation for a possible cross-border operation to crush about 3,000 PKK terrorists who launch deadly attacks into Turkey from northern Iraq.
“We are moving more troops from other provinces to the Şırnak province,” a military source, who declined to be named, told Reuters in southeastern Turkey. Turkey’s military has boosted troop levels, mainly in the Hakkari and Şırnak provinces bordering Iraq.
Security sources told Reuters 10 Sikorsky helicopters carrying troops and military equipment took off from the town of Yüksekova in Hakkari and headed for the Dağlıca region near the Iraqi border.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by a large majority of the international community, has claimed 42 lives in Turkey this month alone.
US won’t do anything against PKK
Washington is opposed to a unilateral military move by its NATO ally, fearing it would destabilize Iraq’s north. Turkish nationalist opposition parties have accused Erdoğan and his government of being too soft on terrorism and of being swayed by US pressure to not send troops into Iraq. Anti-US sentiment has soared in Turkey over the past few years due to Washington’s refusal to crack down on the PKK, which uses northern Iraq as a launching pad for attacks on Turkish targets, despite the fact that the PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by the US capital as well.
Underlining the US reluctance to get directly involved in the Kurdish-run northern Iraq, the senior US military commander in northern Iraq said Friday his forces planned to do “absolutely nothing” to counter the PKK. Major General Benjamin Mixon, commander of Multi-National Division North, said Iraq’s three northern provinces were under the control of the Kurdish provincial government and he had no instructions to take action in the border area.