SALAHUDDIN, Iraq Feb. 28 �
Kurdish leaders said Friday they will resist if the United States lets
Turks join an invasion of northern Iraq, raising fears American troops
will be caught in a generations-old ethnic struggle for control of the
strategic border region.
Turkey plans to send thousands of troops into northern Iraq during any
U.S. invasion, ostensibly to provide humanitarian aid for people displaced
by the fighting. It also wants to prevent weapons held by Kurdish groups
from falling into the hands of independence-minded Turkish Kurds, who also
have bases in northern Iraq.
"Our people are going to resist the plan with all the means at their
disposal," said Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Sami Abdul Rahman. "Nothing
whatsoever will persuade us to accept an incursion of Turkish forces."
"The answer of our people is a flat no," he told reporters after
closed-door sessions of a conference of 50 members of an Iraqi opposition
steering committee formed in December to guide plans for the country if
Saddam Hussein is toppled.
The Kurds fear the Turks will remain indefinitely in northern Iraq and
try to subjugate Kurdish aspirations of self-rule because Ankara fears
that could encourage Turkey's own sizable Kurdish minority's demands for
the same rights.
Turkish troops will be "a boot on our chest" meant to "strangle our
people," Rahman said.
"The freedom of our people is part of the price paid to Turkey" for its
cooperation in the U.S. military plan, he said at the mountain stronghold
of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Kurds in the bazaars, streets and even the floor of the Kurdish
parliament have said they would be willing to take up arms against any
Turkish forces who enter the autonomous enclave. That could drag U.S.
troops into an ethnic war as they are trying to restore order in a
post-Saddam Iraq.
If such a situation arises, Kurdish officials and Iraqi opposition
figures privately have suggested they would launch a propaganda battle
against a U.S.-led war, casting America as an enemy of the Iraqi people's
aspirations for freedom.
Rahman's Kurdistan Democratic Party governs the western half of the
autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, a relatively democratic
enclave created by their oppressed minority after the 1991 Gulf War and
protected from Saddam's forces by U.S. and British air patrols. The
eastern part is controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
The Kurds generally have been pro-American. But their concerns about a
possible Turkish incursion are growing.
In exchange for their cooperation in a possible U.S. northern front
against Saddam, Turks have asked Washington for money and guarantees that
Iraqi Kurds living within a de facto Kurdish-run government won't use the
war as an opportunity to declare an independent state.
One of the two top Kurdish leaders, Jalal Talabani, sought to assure
Turkey on Thursday that the Kurds will not declare an independent
state.
The Kurds also are enraged at reports Turkey wants the Kurds'
battle-hardened militiamen, the Peshmergas, to be disarmed.
Kurdish officials and Iraqi opposition leaders have hinted they would
seek help from Iran, a U.S. enemy that hosts thousands of exiled Iraqi
Shiite warriors the "Badr Brigades" of the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq on Iraq's eastern border.
Hamid al-Bayati a senior member of the Supreme Council, was asked
whether Iran would intervene if Turkey sends in troops.
"They have an option to allow the Badr brigade to enter" Iraq, he
replied.
A U.S. delegation to the talks is headed by Zalmay Khalilzad, the White
House liaison to the Iraqi opposition. At the opening of the gathering on
Wednesday, Khalilzad tried to allay the opposition's fears of a planned
U.S.-military government. He assured them the martial rule would be a
transition to full democracy and would be kept as brief as possible.
Khalilzad also announced a proposal to break up the Iraqi opposition
groups into five task forces to deal with a range of government
issues.
On Thursday, al-Bayati said the conference had appointed a six-member
executive to serve as an "interim leadership" in a post-Saddam Iraq. The
opposition figures also have organized 14 subcommittees to address details
of post-Saddam governance.
Two of those designated for the leadership committee did not attend
Adnan Pachachi, a secular Sunni and former foreign minister, and Ayad
Allawi, head of Iraqi National Accord, which has links to the U.S.
establishment.
Pachachi released a statement denying knowledge of the committee and
said he would not take part.
photo credit and
caption:
U.S. representative to the Iraqi
opposition, Zelmay Khalilzad, center, arrives to attend the second
day meeting of the Iraqi opposition groups' leaders, as members of
the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service , right and left, escort him,
at Salahaddin, Iraq which is controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP), 250 miles (400 kilometers) north of the capital
Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2003. (AP Photo/Vahid
Salemi)
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