A retired senior Turkish military officer publicly suggested the assassination of the prominent Iraqi Kurdish leader Bafel Talabani, during a live TV broadcast on Sep 21.
İsmail Hakkı Pekin, former chief of military intelligence and a pro-government TV pundit, asserted during a discussion program on Habertürk TV that a recent memorandum of understanding between Turkey and Iraq could enable such an assassination. "Bafel Talabani is taking some steps; then you can eliminate him. If necessary, you could carry out an assassination. This is of vital importance. If we don’t resolve these conflicts now, they will become even more problematic in the future,” he remarked.
When warned by the moderator of the program, Pekin added, “You wouldn’t do it yourself; you would have someone else do it," seemingly toning down his initial call for direct action.
In August, Turkey and Iraq signed a memorandum of understanding, prompting the Baghdad government to ban three political parties allegedly affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey views as a terror group. In March, Iraq announced that it had declared the PKK a banned group without officially designating it as a terrorist organization.
Turkey has recently accused the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Bafel Talabani, of cooperating with the PKK. The PUK, which controls the Sulaymaniyah province of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, tolerates the PKK’s political and military activities here, according to Ankara.
According to Pekin, Turkey should make similar agreements with the Syrian government. When asked about President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s recent statement expressing his willingness to mend ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the ex-officer supported this stance.
Turkey views the Kurdish-led administration that controls about one-fourth of the Syrian territory as an extension of the PKK. (VK)