US Official in Northern Iraq for Possible Military Operation: Agency

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, December 12, 2001

US Official in Northern Iraq for Possible Military Operation: Agency

A senior US official has traveled to northern Iraq via Turkey to meet with representatives of Iraqi opposition groups amid reports of possible US "second phase" operation against Iraq after Afghanistan.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Middle East Rein Crocker, who left for northern Iraq on Monday, will meet with representatives of certain nongovernmental organizations and the Iraqi Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the state-run Anatolia News Agency reported on Tuesday that .

Crocker is expected to act as a mediator between the two Kurdish groups in an attempt to help them reach a power-sharing agreement in northern Iraq.

US officials in Washington said that the US understood well the sensitivity of Turkey about northern Iraq, adding that the meetings with the Kurdish groups would be held in a transparent way.

Crocker traveled to northern Iraq via Turkey was a sign of this transparency, according to the US officials, who also stressed that the cooperation between the US and Turkey about northern Iraq would continue.

Crocker will be received by senior Turkish government officials on his way back from northern Iraq after completion of his talks in the region.

Turkey has expressed its opposition to the US spreading the anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan to Iraq mainly for fear that the Iraqi Kurds should take the advantage to establish a separate Kurdish state in northern Iraq. The scenario might encourage separatist trends of the Turkish Kurds in southeastern regions.

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