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TURKEY: ANKARA TO HOST IRAQI LEADERS |
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Written by AKI
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Tuesday, 28 February 2006 03:31 |
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Turkey's attempts to defuse sectarian tensions in neighbouring Iraq will include a visit to Ankara on Tuesday by Iraq's prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and the arrival later this week of radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Both men will hold meetings with Turkish leaders to discuss ways to curb the recent violence between Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis. "In these talks, we will make efforts to calm the ongoing violence in Iraq,” Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.
According to the Turkish leader, the bloodshed which began last week with the destruction of a Shiite shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra, was the result of "provocation" aimed at deepening the security crisis in Iraq.
"Do you believe that any Sunni could plant a bomb in a (Shiite) shrine? This isn't possible," Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Anatolia News Agency. "This is definitely a provocation. This is nothing more than sparking sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shiites."
Al-Jaafari who has been to Turkey twice - first as the Iraqi deputy president in 2004 and secondly as prime minister in 2005 - will meet top government officials, including Erdogan and foreign minister Abdullah Gul.
Besides the recent tension, al-Jaafari is also expected to inform Turkish officials about the latest attempts at forming the Iraqi government.
Turkey is very concerned over rising sectarian tension in the country, fearing that it could lead to its disintegration, with violent repercussions in Northern Iraq between the ethnic Kurdish majority and the Turkmen minority. Turkey is strictly opposed to an autonomous Kurdish administration in Northern Iraq fearing that it might trigger the separatist moves among Kurds in Turkey.
A New York Times article on Sunday predicted that Turkey might feel compelled to move to protect Iraq's Turkmen minority against a Kurdish state in the north in case of a break-up of the country due to civil war.
Turkey started its own initiative in 2004 - consisiting of a series of regular meetings - aimed to help stabilise the country. Ankara is expected to accelarate the initiative after the recent violence in Iraq. |