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The public attention in Turkey is being focused on the Kurdish groups advancing towards Mosul and Kirkuk in northern Iraq after the apparent fall of Saddam regime in Baghdad, the Turkey-based Turkeyie Daily said on Thursday.
Despite Turkey's warnings, the Peshmargas (Kurdish militia) led by Chairman of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Massoud Barzani were deployed a few kilometers from Mosul while Chairman of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Jalal Talabani's forces were deployed near Kirkuk.
They started to make preparations to enter these two cities, the paper said.
Turkish Chief of General Staff General Hilmi Ozkok began to get hourly information on the developments, sources said.
Speaking at a conference on Iraq at the War Academies in Istanbul on Wednesday, President Ahmed Necdet Sezer said Turkey attributed special importance to prevention of an ethnic group to get hold of those two cities and separation of them from Iraqi territory.
Sezer also recalled Ankara's red lines about the issue of northern Iraq.
Turkey is much concerned over the fate of Mosul and Kirkuk, fearing that by taking these two oil-rich cities the Iraqi Kurds would be further boosted in their pursuit of independence in northern Iraq.
(Xinhua News Agency April 10, 2003)
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