"Turkey: Ankara Increasingly Preoccupied By Developments In Northern Iraq
By Jean-Christophe Peuch
Kurdish ambitions in Iraq have always been a thorn in Turkey's side, and Ankara has long warned that any attempt at creating a federal Iraq with an autonomous Kurdish north would prompt a swift response. Early election results from northern Iraq's predominantly Kurdish areas and persisting ethnic tension in the northern city of Kirkuk have now brought Turkey's concerns to new heights.
Prague, 9 February 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Ankara, which fought an armed insurgency in its predominantly Kurdish southeastern provinces in the 1980s and '90s, has always considered the possible emergence of a Kurdish autonomous or independent province in northern Iraq as contrary to its interests. "
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