Richard Armitage will visit Turkey to discuss Iraq crisis

ANKARA: US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is due in Ankara on Sunday to discuss differences over US policy in neighboring Iraq, which has been criticized by Washington’s NATO ally Turkey, US sources here said Tuesday. Armitage, who is to step down from his post along with his boss, US Secretary of State Colin Powell who resigns early next year, is scheduled to meet Monday with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, the source said. Relations between the strategic partners were strained by the US-led intervention in Iraq in April 2003. Public opposition in mainly Muslim but secular Turkey is strongly opposed to the US presence in Iraq and the Turkish parliament last year refused to let US forces use Turkish territory to open a northern front in the war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.A deputy from Erdogan’s conservative Justice and Development party, which has its roots in a now-banned Islamist movement, in November accused US troops of committing “genocide” in Iraq. Turkey has also urged Washington several times to deal severely with Turkish Kurdish rebels in the Kurdistan Workers Party, ( PKK - now renamed as Kongra-Gel) leading an armed struggle against Turkish authorities in the southeast of the country, who have fled into northern Iraq. afp

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