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Baghdad: Iraq's senior Kurdish leader met with Turkish officials on Tuesday in Baghdad, a news agency reported, the first direct talks between the two sides in four years.
The meeting between Kurdish regional president Masoud Barzani and a Turkish envoy occurred as tensions are high after Kurdish rebels killed 17 Turkish soldiers on the Turkey-Iraq border earlier this month.
Turkish warplanes have been bombing Kurdish rebel hideouts across the border in northern Iraq since an October 3 attack by PKK militants against a Turkish border outpost that killed 17 soldiers and has been pressuring them to cut supply lines to the rebels and arrest and hand over rebel leaders.
The meeting, which was held in the US-protected Green Zone, lasted about two hours, Turkey's state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
Turkey's special envoy for Iraq Murat Ozcelik was quoted as saying the talks were held in a "positive atmosphere" and that Turkey had communicated to the other side its suggestions concerning security.
The Baghdad meeting comes after President Abdullah Gul said the Turkish government would talk with Iraqi Kurds to resolve the problem, in line with a longstanding call from northern Iraq's regional Kurdish government.
Welcome
Attaakhi newspaper, owned by Barzani's ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party, on Tuesday welcomed what it called a policy shift.
"This is an important change in Turkey's policy because the government has always refused to hold direct dialogue with our government regarding cooperation and border issues to contain the PKK."
Ankara has routinely accused Iraqi Kurds, who run the autonomous region, of tolerating, or even aiding the rebels, and long refused to hold discussions with Barzani's administration.
Iraqi authorities have pledged efforts to curb the PKK, but say the group's hideouts are located in inhospitable mountains.
A spokesman for the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, Fouad Hussain, said earlier that the meeting was being held to discuss bilateral relations.
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