From: trh%jack.sns.com%harvunxw.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Haber/News
Date: 15 Nov 1992 14:25:19 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
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11/14/92 IRAN, SYRIA, TURKEY HOLD TALKS ON NORTHERN IRAQ

    By Alistair Lyon
    ANKARA, Nov 14, Reuter - Turkey, Iran and Syria, ignoring protests from
their neighbour Iraq and Kurdish rebels there, held talks in Ankara on Saturday
saying they just want to ensure peace in the region.
    The three regional powers, which all have substantial Kurdish minorities,
have not disclosed their agenda, but say they are anxious to maintain Iraq's
territorial integrity.
    Foreign minister Hikmet Cetin welcomed his Iranian and Syrian colleagues,
Ali Akbar Velayati and Farouq al-Shara, to the Ankara Palas, a state guesthouse
built in the 1920s.
    Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, who had also been
invited to the meeting, did not attend.
    The Iraqi government and its Iraqi Kurdish foes in the dissident north asked

to be represented but were turned down.
    Cetin said when meeting Velayati at the airport the meeting aimed to ensure
peace and tranquillity in the region and that it had not been organised against
anyone, Turkish radio said.
    Velayati voiced pleasure at continued dialogue between the three countries
and said the region must decide its own fate.
    "We are definitely against the formation of an independent state in northern

Iraq," Cetin, who is himself a Kurd from southeastern Turkey, told parliament on

Friday.
    "There cannot be a fait accompli solution to the problem and we cannot agree

to the unilateral (Kurdish) declaration of a federal government in northern
Iraq," he said.
    Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein alike are annoyed and alarmed

at what they see as possible interference in their internal affairs by their
powerful neighbours.
    The three-way meeting may also have aroused the concern of the Western
allies, which have 48 warplanes based at Incirlik, in southern Turkey to deter
Iraq from attacking the north.
    Syria and Turkey backed the U.S.-led coalition in last year's Gulf War
against Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
    Iran strongly condemned Saddam's seizure of the emirate, but opposes any
Western military presence in the Middle East.
    A strong current of opinion in Turkey blames the deterrent force maintained
by the United States, Britain and France for creating conditions in which a de
facto Kurdish state can arise.
    Iraqi Kurds deny they are seeking independence. Their 105-member parliament
voted on October 4 for a federal Kurdish state within a united, democratic,
pluralistic Iraq.
    Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said last week
that Iran, Syria and Turkey were worried because the Iraqi national opposition,
which includes Kurds, was not under their sway and had built independent ties
with the West.
    "For decades, the Kurds were inside their caves, without any contact with
the outside world. Now something has changed and public opinion in Europe and
America is sympathetic to us.
    "Now the Iraqi opposition is independent...and we are not obeying the orders

of the intelligence services of this or that country," he told reporters. "Of
course they are worried."
    Iraqi Kurds are seeking good relations with Turkey, their supply lifeline,
and cracked down last month on separatist Kurdish guerrillas attacking Turkey
from northern Iraq.
    Turkey says the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), trying to carve out an
independent Kurdish state in the region, has received aid in the past from both
Iran and Syria.
    More than 5,100 people have been killed in Turkey, home to an estimated 10
million Kurds, in its eight-year-old struggle.
    Ankara wants to hold Tehran and Damascus to pledges they have made to help
secure Turkey's frontiers and prevent the Marxist PKK from finding new bases for

cross-border attacks.