Turkey to intensify relations with Iraqi Kurds

Babacan said Turkey has a policy framework of improving dialogue and relations with every group in Iraq, when a journalist asked whether there will be a special contact between Ankara and Arbil in a joint presser with his New Zealand counterpart Winston Peters.

"There have been different views and different approaches between (Turkey and) the administration in northern Iraq regarding to the terror organization, the PKK. However in the coming days you may expect an increase in the contacts with the administration in northern Iraq on different levels," he was quoted as saying by CNNTurk.

Closer dialogue with the Iraqi Kurds "is important with respect to fighting the terrorist organization (PKK) and also for our economic relations and energy cooperation with Iraq as a whole," the minister said.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, including the EU and the U.S., has long used camps in the mountains of northern Iraq as a springboard for attacks on Turkish targets across the border. Ankara has accused the Iraqi Kurds, who run autonomous region of northern Iraq, of tolerating the PKK and even supplying it with weapons and explosives. Â

Photo: AFP