A top U.S. State Department official urged Turkey on Thursday to show restraint in responding to attacks inside the country by Turkish Kurds operating from Iraqi territory, a senior State Department official said. Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried issued the call for calm to Turkish Ambassador Nabi Sensoy after the Turkish military sought government approval to launch cross border raids into Iraq to root out guerrillas from the Kurdish Workers Party of PKK, the official said, according to AP. The official asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record. Earlier State Department spokesman Sean McCormack acknowledged the legitimacy of Turkey's concern. «Turkey faces a real threat from the PKK,» he said. «It's a terrorist organization. It has killed innocent Turkish citizens. It has killed Turkish military. And it's a problem that needs to be dealt with.» But, he said, the Turkish and Iraqi governments should work together to try to resolve the problem. He noted that retired Army Gen. Joseph Ralston is trying to assist the two countries in reaching an accommodation. «The focus should be on trying to resolve this in a cooperative way, in a joint way, rather than to resort to unilateral actions,» McCormack said. Hostilities between Turkey and Iraq would put the United States in the middle of conflict between two close allies and would deflect attention from the U.S. effort to bring stability to Iraq. Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq, said recently that Iraqi Kurds would retaliate for any Turkish interference in northern Iraq by stirring up trouble in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast. -- SPA
