Baghdad: Iraq's government, under increasing pressure to crack down on Kurdish rebels using its rugged northern mountains as a base for guerrilla attacks in Turkey, ordered their offices closed on Tuesday and promised to curb their movements and block their funds.
The office of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki said his order to close the offices of the Kurdistan Workers Party, known by its Turkish acronym PKK, was relayed to visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan.
Babacan was in Baghdad yesterday to meet Iraqi leaders to press them to crack down on the guerrillas as his country massed troops on the border with Iraq.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said he and Babacan had agreed on concrete measures to defuse the crisis. He did not elaborate, saying only that a high-level political and military defence delegation would travel soon to Turkey.
Iraq's central government and authorities in its Kurdish autonomous region in the north, he added, will work together to deny the PKK freedom of movement, funds and representative offices.
'Terrorist activities'
"The Kurdistan Workers Party is a bad terrorist organisation and we have decided to close its offices and not allow it to work on Iraqi territory," Al Maliki was quoted by a statement issued by his office.
"We will do everything to curtail all terrorist activities that threaten Iraq as well as Turkey."
