Two senior US officials promised that they would convey to Iraq Turkey's unease over Kurdish rebels in the north but they also expressed concern over the possibility of a Turkish military offensive in the region.
While in Moscow, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged "a difficult time" in relations with Turkey. She appealed for restraint against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and in Turkey's angry response to a genocide resolution in Congress.
Dan Fried, US assistant secretary of state for European affairs, and Eric Edelman, US undersecretary of defense for policy, met with Turkish officials on Saturday in a bid to assuage anger over the resolution, which would label the World War I-era killing of Armenians by Turks a genocide.
PHOTO: AP
Turkey recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations after a House of Representatives committee's approval of the resolution last week and warned of serious repercussions if Congress passes the resolution.
The committee's approval raised concerns that Turkey may be less restrained about defying the US.
US officials said on Friday there are about 60,000 Turkish troops massed along the country's southern border with Iraq. But the US military has not seen activity to suggest an imminent offensive against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq who have been crossing the border to attack Turkish forces.
Turkey's parliament was expected to approve a government request to authorize an Iraq campaign as early as this week. The US is concerned a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq would disrupt one of the country's few relatively stable areas.
Kurdish rebels killed more than 15 Turkish soldiers in the past week and are blamed for an ambush that killed 12 people the week before. The government responded to the deaths by announcing tougher measures against the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has bases in northern Iraq and has been fighting the Turkish government since 1984.
Fried and Edelman promised to convey Turkey's concerns to Iraqi officials in the Kurdish region. At the same time, "we told our concerns" over any Turkish military incursion, Edelman told reporters in the capital Ankara after meeting Turkish Foreign Ministry officials.
Turkey's military preparations come amid concern in Washington that the genocide resolution could jeopardize supply routes the US military has used to move armored vehicles to troops in Iraq.
About 70 percent of US air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the US military there. US bases also get water and other supplies overland by Turkish truckers who cross into Iraq's north.
At issue in the resolution is the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks. Turkey denies that the World War I-era deaths constituted genocide and says the toll has been inflated.
Turkey also contends the dead were victims of civil war and unrest that killed Muslims as well as the overwhelmingly Christian Armenian population.
Fried promised the administration of US President George W. Bush would work to prevent the adoption of the resolution.
"We will do everything we can so that this resolution will not come to the House floor," he said in an interview with private NTV television.
The US officials flew to Ankara from Moscow, where they had been on the trip with Rice.
"Secretary of State Rice Condoleezza Rice asked us before we came here to express that the Bush administration is opposed to this resolution," said Edelman, who was the US ambassador to Turkey from 2003 to 2005.
Rice said she spoke on Friday by telephone with Turkey's president, prime minister and foreign minister about the genocide resolution.
"They were dismayed," she said.
"I urged restraint," she added, referring to both the reaction to the genocide resolution and in the situation in northern Iraq.
"The Turkish government, I think, is trying to react responsibly. They recognize how hard we worked to prevent that vote from taking place," Rice said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS