Baghdad: Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki said yesterday he was dispatching a "high-level" political and security team to Turkey to try to defuse tensions on the Iraqi-Turkish border.
A statement by his office said the decision was made after Al Maliki met with senior aides to discuss the crisis over a possible Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq in pursuit of separatist Kurdish fighters.
It did not say when the Iraqi delegation would leave for Ankara, where Iraqi Vice-President Tariq Al Hashemi arrived earlier yesterday for talks with Turkish leaders over the border issue.
"The Iraqi government will send a high-level political and security delegation to Turkey to deal with the recent security developments on the two nations' common borders," said the statement, which came one day after Al Maliki announced he was prepared to hold urgent talks with the Turkish government over the issue.
"The Iraqi government ... reiterates its commitment to ban terrorist activities carried out by the Kurdistan Workers' Party against neighbouring Turkey."
Maliki, it said, "will not accept military solutions as a way of dealing [with issues] between the two countries even though we realise and understand the worries of our Turkish friends."
Al Maliki's office said the prime minister had stressed the importance of implementing an agreement between the Iraqi and Turkish governments signed last month to combat the PKK.
"The Iraqi government will try by all means to defuse the crisis with its neighbour Turkey and is concerned to maintain security and stability," it said.
Erdogan discounts incursion threats
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that securing permission from parliament to launch a major attack on Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq did not necessarily mean a military incursion was imminent.
Instead, Erdogan said "we will act at the right time and under the right conditions".
Meanwhile, Iraq's Vice-President Tariq Al Hashemi arrived in Ankara yesterday in an apparent attempt to convince Turkey not to stage a cross-border offensive to fight separatist Kurdish rebels based in Iraq.
Al Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, was scheduled to meet with Erdogan and other senior officials.
The Turkish Parliament was expected to approve a motion today allowing the government to order a cross-border attack over the next year.
"The passage of the motion in Parliament does not mean that an operation will be carried out at once," Erdogan said yesterday.
"Turkey would act with common sense and determination when necessary and when the time is ripe." Erdogan called on Iraq and Iraqi Kurds to crack down on separatist rebels. He said the regional administration in northern Iraq should "build a thick wall between itself and terrorist organisations."
Erdogan said any action would only target the rebels and Turkey would respect Iraq's territorial integrity. Washington has urged Nato-ally Turkey not to enter Iraq, fearing that unilateral Turkish military action could destabilise the autonomous Kurdish region in the north which is one of the country's few relatively stable areas.
