US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq on a previously unannounced visit.
The trip was aimed at supporting the reconciliation efforts of the new UN envoy in Iraq, Steffan de Mistura, in the religiously and ethnically diverse city in the Kurdish autonomous region.
During her visit, which was not announced in advance for security reasons, Rice will meet representatives of the Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite Arab, Christian and Turkmen communities.
On Monday Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the autonomous Kurdish regional government, said his administration favoured delaying by six months a referendum on the future of Kirkuk, easing immediate tensions among the mixed population.
Barzani after meeting in the central city of Najaf with the Shiites' most influential cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said the regional government is in favour of this extension.
According to article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, the referendum had been due to be held by the end of 2007 to decide whether the region with its oil wealth should go under the control of the autonomous Kurdish government.
In other developments, Turkish troops invaded northern Iraq early on Tuesday to flush out separatist Kurdis , Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga security force said.
The operation is the first reported ground incursion by the Turkish military inside Iraq since tension between Ankara and Baghdad erupted over the Kurdish rebel issue in October.
Yawar said the area they entered is a deserted area; there is no Iraqi force or peshmerga deployed there.
A leader of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) also confirmed the operation by Turkish forces.
A local Kurdish television channel called Kurdistan, belonging to regional President Massud Barzani's party, said that the Turkish soldiers had penetrated several kilometres (miles) inside Iraq from an area called Seed Qan.
It said the troops had reached the villages of Khaya Rash, Bunwaq, Janarouq and Kelirosh.
The ground operation comes after Turkish warplanes bombed several villages along the Iraq-Turkey border on Sunday to target rebel hideouts in the region.
Residents said schools and bridges were destroyed in the foothills of the Qandil mountains along the border where the bombing took place.
Tension between Iraq and Turkey has been high since October 21 when the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) ambushed a Turkish military patrol, killing 12 soldiers.
Since then Ankara has been threatening to launch a military incursion into Iraq to flush out PKK fighters hiding out in the mountainous north.
1 comment:
I am not holding my breath that Condi will accomplish anything on her visit. So she had to get away from the Gerbil, had to take a break from him, well that's a long ways to go to get away from someone for a while.
Post a Comment