Iraq says it’s cracking down on Kurdish rebels

updated 3:27 p.m. ET Oct. 23, 2007

BAGHDAD - Under growing pressure to crack down on Kurdish rebels using northern Iraq as a base for guerrilla attacks in Turkey, the Iraqi government ordered the rebels’ offices closed Tuesday and promised to curb their movements and block their funds.

Turkish troops were massing along the border, with military helicopters airlifting commando units into the area overnight. Earlier Tuesday in London, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that his country cannot wait forever for the Iraqi government to move.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the offices of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known by its Turkish acronym PKK, closed, and said the government will “not allow it to work on Iraqi territory.”

The statement from al-Maliki contradicted repeated assertions by Iraqi officials in recent days that the PKK’s presence in Iraq was restricted to inaccessible parts of northern Iraq that could not be reached by authorities.

Earlier, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, himself a Kurd, said Iraq’s central government and authorities in its Kurdish autonomous region in the north would work together to deny the rebels freedom of movement, funds and representative offices. He said a high-level political and military delegation would travel soon to Turkey.

Zebari insisted there was a “resolve and insistence on the part of the Iraqi government” to cooperate with Turkey to resolve the border issue “and deal with the terrorism that Turkey is subjected to.”

The mix of diplomatic and military activity followed Sunday’s rebel ambush near the Iraqi border that left 12 Turkish soldiers dead, 16 wounded and eight missing.

U.S.: 'Not pleased' with inaction
In Washington, David Satterfield — the State Department’s top Iraq adviser — said leaders of the autonomous Kurdish area in northern Iraq have been lax in pursuing the rebels.

Until now, the United States had focused its public comments on Turkey, saying it should not launch a military attack onto Iraqi soil, and on the Iraqi central government in Baghdad, saying that Iraq must act against the rebels.

In his comments Tuesday, Satterfield did not directly call on the Kurdish Regional Government to use military force against the PKK but said the Kurds must cut off the PKK’s movement and local means of support.

“I must tell you, and this is not anything which the Kurdish leadership is not aware of from our own voice, we are not pleased with the lack of action,” Satterfield said.

Britain has backed the United States in trying to keep Turkey from crossing into Iraq to attack Kurdish rebels based there. The U.S. and others fear a Turkish attack could lead to widespread bloodshed in one of Iraq’s few relatively peaceful areas.

But Turks are increasingly frustrated with the deadly rebel attacks.

“To this day, I have met the Iraqi central government four times. We have dwelled upon these issues very carefully,” Erdogan said in London through an interpreter. “We waited for 14 months for this mechanism to bear fruit, but it did not, and we cannot wait forever.”

Erdogan said he would continue to consult with U.S.-led forces in Iraq and the central government “whether or not they have some influence on the north,” but added: “From this point forward we’re also looking at the military dimension.”

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