Iraqi Kurds angry over Turkey deal

ARBIL, Iraq, Saturday (AFP) - The government of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region expressed its anger today at being kept in the dark about an agreement between Baghdad and Ankara to crack down on rebel Turkish Kurds. The accord was signed yesterday in Turkey's capital by Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani and his Turkish counterpart Besir Atalay.

“It would have been better if someone had told us what was going to be in the agreement,” Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of the Kurdish Regional Government's foreign affairs department, said in a statement posted on the KRG's website. Turkey says the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) enjoys free movement in northern Iraq, where it has long taken refuge, and obtains weapons and explosives there for attacks across the border.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and much of the international community. Atalay said yesterday that the two sides had failed to agree on a proposed provision concerning “the strengthening of security and cooperation in border areas” and that negotiations would continue.

A draft provision sought by Ankara would have reportedly allowed Turkey -- with Iraqi authorisation -- to conduct “hot pursuit”, or small-scale military operations across the border to hunt PKK militants. But the Iraqi Kurds, who run northern Iraq and have been accused by Ankara of tolerating and even aiding the PKK, raised objections to the provision, according to media reports.