'I fear that it could come to a very big civil war,' said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Ergodan in a television interview.
'Kirkuk belongs to all Iraqis,' he said. 'It would be wrong to give the city to only one ethnic group.'
Turkey fears that Kurdish control of the oil-rich city could lead to the creation of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq and one which is capable of surviving economically.
Erdogan called for Kirkuk to be given a special status, and said the referendum scheduled for late 2007 on the future of the city as foreseen by the Iraqi constitution, was a mistake.
The referendum should at least be postponed, he said. Resolving the problem would be an important step towards peace and for the future of the city.
AINA News Agency
4 comments:
If come the creation of Kurdish state, the consequences for Turkey have been made very vocal; yet, I have not heard anyone talk about the consequences for Armenia. Which scholar has evaluated this? What are people's thoughts on the subject?
It depends on what you are referring to as "Kurdistan". Are you talking about Northern Iraq, or Southwestern Turkey? I know that Armenians have territorial claims against Turkey (Eastern part) from the genocide, but I am not sure if there is overlap with the yet to be seen "Kurdistan" In any case the militant Turkish government will more than likely threaten (or worse, commence) war before we see this happen...
http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=13969
After reading the article and thinking a little more about it, I would answer my own question by saying 'Armenia what?' Armenia is a threat to nobody in the region and therefore nobody cares.
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