Baghdad, October 15: Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded that Turkey respect Iraq’s sovereignty in its pursuit of Kurdish rebels, as he held talks with his Turkish counterpart in Baghdad on Thursday on the thorniest disputes between their two countries.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit, during which some 20 agreements were due to be signed, was the latest move by Ankara to boost its ties with its Arab neighbours amid a growing spat with Israel.
Erdogan, who also met President Jalal Talabani, discussed with Maliki both Ankara’s concerns about the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and Baghdad’s concerns about its share of the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.
Maliki voiced Baghdad’s unhappiness about the infringement of its sovereignty implied by the Turkish parliament’s decision earlier this month to renew for a third straight year its authorisation for military operations against the PKK across the border into Iraq.
“Nuri al-Maliki demanded respect for Iraq’s sovereignty, and said nobody can violate it,” Dabbagh said.
Since Turkish MPs first approved cross-border operations in 2007, the Turkish military has mounted a string of air raids against suspected PKK rear-bases, using intelligence supplied by the United States.
In February 2008, it even carried out a week-long ground incursion.
Turkish-Iraqi ties have gathered steam since the two governments formed a joint committee with the United States last November to combat the PKK. It meets every two months to exchange intelligence and to coordinate security measures against the rebels.
Maliki also put forward Iraqi proposals to formalise the sharing of the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers which have their sources in Turkey but are vital for Iraqi farmers.
“No agreements have been signed yet, but there are some protocols about water issues that have been discussed,” Dabbagh said.
He said the flow of water currently coming into Iraq from Turkey was 440 cubic metres per second. One cubic metre is equivalent to 35.3 cubic feet.
In August, Iraq complained that Turkey had cut the flow back to only 250 m3/s — around a quarter of the minimum requirement for irrigation. But last month Dabbagh said Ankara had agreed to raise that to between 450 and 500 m3/s.
Both Iraq and its western neighbour Syria have often complained that Turkey monopolises the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris through a series of dams built on both rivers as part of a massive irrigation project.
Turkey argues that the dams allow for better management, ensuring a constant flow of water downstream unaffected by seasonal changes.
A delegation of eight Turkish ministers was in Syria on Tuesday as Ankara moved to cement a rapprochement with Damascus which began a decade ago when the regime cuts its ties with the PKK.
Syrian Defence Minister Ali Habib said the two countries would hold joint war games for the second time this year.
The announcement came after Ankara said it would exclude Israel from annual war games in central Turkey, angering its longstanding regional ally to whom it has been bound by a defence pact since 1996.
Erdogan told Al-Arabiya television on Wednesday that the decision had been motivated by “diplomatic sensitivities,” an allusion to Turkish anger over Israel’s devastating offensive against Gaza at the turn of the year.
On Thursday, he told Turkey’s semi-official Anatolia news agency that he had to take account of domestic public opinion on Israel.
The Gaza war led to a sharp downturn in Turkey’s relations with Israel and prompted the suspension of both Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and of Turkey’s efforts to broker a resumption of peace talks between Syria and Israel.
—Agencies