TURKEY: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agree to try to improve relations between their countries
Record ID:
561429
TURKEY: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agree to try to improve relations between their countries
- Title: TURKEY: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agree to try to improve relations between their countries
- Date: 9th March 2008
- Summary: (EU)ANKARA, TURKEY (MARCH 8, 2008) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF IRAQI PRESIDENT JALAL TALABANI AND TURKISH PRIME MINISTER RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN SEATED DURING PHOTO OP (4 SHOTS)
- Embargoed: 24th March 2008 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Turkey
- Country: Turkey
- Reuters ID: LVA6C5PCO9RPYH2S5LME2R6IF1K1
- Story Text: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Saturday (March 8) met Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the last day of his visit to Turkey.
Both leaders agreed to turn a new page in Turkey-Iraq relations a week after Ankara ended an army offensive against PKK rebels based in the north of the country.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's visit to Turkey was aimed at smoothing relations strained by the PKK issue and Turkey's fears that Kurds based in northern Iraq aim to create their own state.
Erdogan said at a dinner in honour of Talabani that he believed the two countires were capable of showing the necessary political will to open a new page in Turkish-Iraq relations.
It was Talabani's first visit to Turkey as head of state.
Talabani proposed the creation of a political institution to improve ties between the neighbouring countries, the state-run Anatolian news agency reported. He said this could be at the level of prime minister or foreign minister.
Ankara has been highly critical of Baghdad's failure to crack down on several thousand Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas who use a remote, mountainous part of northern Iraq as a base from which to stage attacks on targets inside Turkey.
Talabani, a Kurd, said on Friday he had called on the government of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region to pressure the PKK to give up their weapons or leave the region.
Turkey blames the PKK for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, since the group began its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.
Iraq's ministers of finance, oil, water resources, national security and industry were travelling with Talabani, who laid stress on the importance of developing economic ties. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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