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WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (KUNA) -- On the same day the Turkish Parliament voted
to allow Turkish troops to invade northern Iraq, President George W. Bush on
Wednesday said such an action would not be in Turkish interests.
There is a better way to deal with the issue than having the Turks send
massive additional troops into the country, Bush said, referring to Kurdish
northern Iraq, where Turkey says elements of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party)
take refuge while launching deadly cross-border actions against Turkish troops.
During a White House press conference, the President said he spoke earlier
in the day with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and U.S. General David
Petraeus, commander of Multi-National Force Iraq, about the issue.
"We are making it very clear to Turkey that we do not think it is in their
interests to send troops
into Iraq," Bush said. "Actually, they have troops already stationed in Iraq,
and they have had troops stationed there for quite a while. We do not think it
is in their interest to send more troops in."
The Iraqi government understands this is a sensitive issue with the Turks,
and that is why Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi was in Istanbul talking
with Turkish leaders to assure them that Iraq shares their concerns about
terrorist activities, Bush said.
U.S. officials are actively involved with the Turks and the Iraqis "through
a tripartite arrangement" to continue dialogue on the issue, he added.
In opening remarks at the briefing, Bush said the U.S. Congress should not
be sorting out the historical record of the Ottoman Empire.
The proposed congressional resolution on the mass killings of Armenians in
Turkey beginning in 1915 is counterproductive, Bush said, adding, "Congress
has more important work to do than antagonizing a democratic ally in the
Muslim world, especially one that is providing vital support for our military
every day."
Since the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the Armenian
"genocide" resolution last week, support has eroded among the full House as
the White House and Turkey continue to press hard for the resolution to be
abandoned. However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat who
has a large population of Armenians in her political district, told Bush on
Tuesday that she still planned to bring the bill to the floor for a full vote
by the House.
Switching topics, Bush refused to comment on a report from Israel Army
Radio indicating that Syrian officials have confirmed that the Israelis struck
a nuclear site in Syria during a bombing raid on Sept. 6. Both White House and
State Department officials have refused to comment on the incident since it
occurred, and Bush on Wednesday said only that his "position had not changed"
on the subject.
Asked about his view of the meeting in Iran on Tuesday between Russian
President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bush said
he was "looking forward to getting President Putin's readout from the meeting."
"We will continue to work with Russia, as well as other nations, to keep a
focused effort on sending Iran a message that you will remain isolated if you
continue your nuclear weapons ambitions," Bush said.
Bush said he was interested in whether or not Putin "continues to harbor
the same concerns that I do" in regard to the Iranian nuclear program.
The President said he has told people that "if you are interested in
avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing
them (the Iranians) from having knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.
And I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously."
Commenting on news reports this week that some in the U.S. military believe
al Qaeda in Iraq has been militarily defeated, the President said that "the
Iraq situation cannot be won by military means alone. There has to be
political reconciliation to go with it. There has to be an emergence of a
democracy."
However, Bush conceded that U.S. forces have "hurt them (al Qaeda) bad in
Iraq. We have hurt them bad elsewhere."
Local reconciliation in Iraq will affect the national government, Bush
predicted.
"In the meantime, we are pressing hard to get the (Iraqi) national
government to complete the strategic partnership with the United States, as
well as pass meaningful legislation, like the de-Baathification law or the
provincial government law or the oil revenue-sharing law," he said.
Turning to the Palestinian-Israeli issue, the President said a planned U.S.
-hosted international conference this fall on the issue will be "a serious and
substantive meeting."
"We believe that now is the time to push ahead with a meeting at which the
Israelis and Palestinians will lay out a vision of what a (Palestinian) state
could look like ... because the Palestinians that have been made promises all
these years need to see there is a serious, focused effort to set up a state,"
Bush said. "And that is important so that the people who want to reject
extremism have something to be for."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
are "making progress" in their ongoing dialogue, Bush said.
The President said it was important to "get Arab buy-in" for a Palestinian
state. Part of the issue in the past has been that the Arab nations "sit on
the sidelines, and when a state was in reach, they were not a part of the
process, encouraging the parties to move forward," he said. The peace process
needs to be "comprehensive in getting people in the region to be a part of the
process," he said.
The United States cannot impose peace, Bush said.
"In order for there to be a Palestinian state, it is going to require the
Israelis and the Palestinians coming to an accord," he said. "We can
facilitate that, but we cannot force people to make hard decisions. They are
going to have to do that themselves." (end)
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