Iraq vows to block supplies to Kurdish rebels

updated 1:50 p.m. ET Oct. 31, 2007

BAGHDAD - Iraq will set up more checkpoints along its northern frontier to keep out supplies for Kurdish rebels, who have been striking the Turkish military in raids across the border, the Iraqi foreign minister said Wednesday.

Hoshyar Zebari said Iraq would set up the checkpoints along with the border with heavily Kurdish southeastern Turkey to stop fuel, food and other supplies from reaching the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has killed dozens of people inside Turkey over the past month. He said they would also take other unspecified measures against the rebels.

Zebari, who is Kurdish, told reporters that Iraq would also restrict the movement of PKK fighters in order to "prevent them from reaching the populated towns and areas" inside Turkey.

The Iraqi official's comments came after he discussed the border issue with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in Baghdad.

Turkish helicopters have begun pounding rebel hideouts in Turkey with rockets, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that his nation would exhaust all diplomatic options before ordering a cross-border offensive.

Zebari warned that a Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq would have "serious consequences for the entire region and could undermine its stability."

He said Iraq was ready "to cooperate actively with the Turkish government to find practical measures" to prevent the attacks staged by Kurdish rebels from Iraqi territory.

Mottaki blamed outside forces for what he called "terrorist operations" both inside Turkey and in other countries in the region, an apparent swipe at the United States.

A Kurdish insurgent group affiliated with the PKK is also fighting for autonomy inside Iran.

Conflict with conference?
Zebari pleaded with participants in a regional conference, planned for Saturday in Istanbul, to remain focused on the issue of Iraq's stability and security, rather than Turkey's threat of sending its military into suspected PKK strongholds in northern Iraq.

"This meeting is very important and should not be hijacked by the current tension and crisis over the PKK terrorist activities in Turkey," he said. "We want this meeting to focus on Iraq's stability and security."

At a May conference in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, Iraq's neighbors promised to stop foreign militants from joining Iraq's insurgency — a pledge that the United States says has not been met.

Turkey is also considering economic sanctions that could wreck the economy of Iraq's Kurdistan region, the most peaceful part of the country.

Kurdistan's regional government has significant autonomy and provides virtually all its own security in the three-province region.

Zebari has said the Iraqi government plans to present the Istanbul conference with recommendations in three key areas — security, refugees and energy.

The conference comes as the U.S. military and Iraqi civilians have seen a drop in attacks and casualties.

But in a grim reminder of continuing violence, the Iraqi military spokesman for Baghdad said that Iraqi forces have discovered 16 corpses in the basement shelter of a building in a Sunni-dominated area of Baghdad.

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