Iraqi Kurdish regional president warns Turkey, says bombing unacceptable

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Iraq's Kurdish regional president warned neighboring Turkey on Monday that he was losing patience with its repeated bombing raids against rebel positions in the north, but acknowledged there was little he could do to stop them. Massoud Barzani said his people "cannot accept" the bombing raids and shelling to continue and condemned the attacks which began on Dec. 16. On Sunday, Turkish fighter jets bombed Kurdish rebel targets inside Iraqi territory, in the fourth cross-border operation against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in one week. "We cannot accept this situation to continue," Barzani told reporters in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah. "We cannot accept our villages to be bombed and our people killed." Barzani refused to meet US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she made a surprise visit to Iraq on Dec. 18, two days after the Turks began their bombings.