Turkey expressed alarm over the seizure of the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk by Kurdish peshmerga fighters on Thursday, but said Washington had promised to order them out within hours. The Kurdish takeover created the risk of a confrontation with Turkish troops that could disrupt U.S. operations. But Ankara has said it is ready to risk U.S. fury by sending in its troops if it feels U.S.-backed Kurds might use the oil center's wealth to seek an independent state, rousing Turkey's own Kurds.
| That's not something we want to see. But it's not something Turkey wants to do, either. Not at all... |
The Iraqi Kurds, trying to calm Turkish fears, deny they plan to use the confusion of postwar Iraq to try to carve out a state based on the northern oilfields and said they want a federal Iraq within existing borders.
| Post-war Iraq is going to have a federal-type government, and the Kurds are going to get their due. I think the U.S. has pretty much decided to look out for them, since they've been the faction that's been allied with us from the start. They might leave Kirkuk today, but next year they'll be back, and Turkey can go whistle. |
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