Turkey, Iraq agree to target Kurd rebels
ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkey and Iraq agreed yesterday to try to root out a Kurdish rebel group from northern Iraq, but Iraq's prime minister said his parliament would have the final say on efforts to halt the guerrillas' cross-border attacks into Turkey.
Turkey has threatened to send troops into northern Iraq unless Iraq or the United States cracked down on the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which seeks greater autonomy for mostly Kurdish regions of southeastern Turkey. For decades, the group has maintained bases in Iraq's Kurdish mountains.
The proposed counterterrorism agreement is aimed at forcing Iraq to commit itself officially to fighting the rebels.
"We have reached an agreement to spend all efforts to end the presence of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK in Iraq," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart, Nouri al-Maliki.
Erdogan said the leaders signed a memorandum of understanding and agreed to speed up work to finalize a counterterrorism pact.
Iraq's cooperation could avert a Turkish incursion, which is opposed by Washington. The United States says the PKK is a terrorist group, but US forces are consumed by chaos elsewhere in Iraq and want to preserve the Kurdish-dominated north as a rare spot of relative stability.
Maliki's already shaky government has been hit with a series of Cabinet desertions by both Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs. The Kurdish portion of his coalition has held fast so far, but some members are questioning their participation, and the prime minister may be wary of angering the Kurds.
While reaching agreement on Kurdish rebels, Maliki refused to sign the counterterrorism agreement requested by the Turkish authorities. He said it was not in his power to commit Baghdad to the agreement without first putting it before parliament and his Cabinet, an Iraqi official said.
The official said Maliki also refused to sign the antiterrorism pact because of Kurdish objections to a description of the PKK as a terrorist organization.
However, Maliki promised to cooperate with Turkey in combating Kurdish rebels. 