ANKARA – Iraqi Kurd leader Massud Barzani said Saturday he opposes Turkey\u2019s military campaign against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq as it will fail to permanently end the conflict.<\/p>\n
Barzani arrived in Ankara Thursday for talks focused on Turkey\u2019s ongoing operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK).<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I disapprove of all these operations … I don\u2019t think that one can achieve the result with the military option\u201d, Barzani told the Hurriyet newspaper.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fighting should happen in parliament\u201d, he told the Anatolia news agency.<\/p>\n
The Turkish military launched an operation in northern Iraq\u2019s autonomous Kurdish region after a PKK attack last month killed 24 soldiers in the town of Cukurca near the Iraqi border, the army\u2019s biggest loss since 1993.<\/p>\n
Clashes between the PKK and the army have escalated since the summer.<\/p>\n
In the interview Saturday, the Kurdish leader condemned the PKK for last month\u2019s deadly attack and called on the group to cease all its military activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the PKK does that, Turkey will no longer have a pretext to pursue its military campaign\u201d, Barzani told Hurriyet.<\/p>\n
Barzani met with Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and was set to have talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan later Saturday.<\/p>\n
Erdogan has already asked Barzani\u2019s administration and Kurdish forces to play a more active role in the fight against the PKK.<\/p>\n
Listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community, the PKK took up arms for Kurdish independence in southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANKARA – Iraqi Kurd leader Massud Barzani said Saturday he opposes Turkey\u2019s military campaign against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq as it will fail to permanently end the conflict. Barzani arrived in Ankara Thursday for talks focused on Turkey\u2019s ongoing operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK). \u201cHonestly, I disapprove of all these operations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":29652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[386],"class_list":["post-46441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-barzani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}