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Gul: Ties with US would collapse if arms to PKK claims confirmed |
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Tuesday, 17 July 2007 |
Turkish-US relations would break apart if rumors of US supply of arms to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iraq are proven correct, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül said.
Former PKK members fleeing camps in northern Iraq have recently said in their testimonies to security officials and prosecutors that members of the terrorist group in Iraq were being supplied with US weapons. Gül earlier said that Turkey has formally requested an explanation from Washington over the claims and officials said Ankara's concerns were not based solely on confessions of the former PKK members.
Asked whether Ankara has evidence to support claims of the former PKK members, Gül said in an interview with private Kanal A television on Sunday night that there has been no confirmation of the charges. "We have not confirmed anything. But there is such an allegation and there are convincing confessions," Gül said, emphasizing that the charges were being investigated. "We have requested information [from the US]."
He said if the US really supplies arms to the PKK, this would eventually be revealed. "If such a thing happens, our relations would break apart," he said. But he added that the allegations could well be part of a plot to undermine Turkish-US ties and said it did not seem logical for the US to supply weapons to the PKK in Iraq openly. "But since there is such an allegation, we have to investigate it," he said.
The foreign minister said Ankara was aware that weapons supplied to the Iraqi army sometimes turned up in PKK hands amid the chaos in Iraq. "Of course the US military and several European countries give weapons to Iraq as there is a new army being built there. Some of these weapons could end up in PKK hands and indeed we found out that some of the PKK weapons seized were those that had been given to the Iraqi army in good faith."
The US classifies the PKK as a terrorist organization and has pledged to take steps to counter the threat it poses to Turkey. But few tangible outcomes have emerged from its fight against the group. Impatient with US slowness, Ankara has warned it could carry out a cross-border operation to strike the PKK bases in northern Iraq.
Gül declined to comment when he was asked whether there could be a cross-border operation in the next month, but added everything could change depending on the circumstances.
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