Turkish PM seeks to turn new page in Iraq relations

By Mert Ozkan

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday he wants better relations with Iraq, a week after Ankara ended an army offensive against PKK rebels based in the north of the country.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is on a visit to Turkey aimed at smoothing relations strained by the PKK issue and Turkey's fears that Kurds based in northern Iraq seek their own state.

"I believe that we are capable of showing the necessary political will to open a new page in Turkish-Iraqi relations," Erdogan said at a dinner in honour of Talabani, who was on his first visit to Turkey as head of state.

Talabani proposed the creation of a political institution to improve ties between the neighbouring countries. which could be at the prime minister or foreign minister level.

Ankara has been highly critical of Baghdad's failure to crack down on several thousand Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas who use a remote, mountainous part of northern Iraq as a base from which to stage attacks on targets inside Turkey.

Talabani, a Kurd, said on Friday he had called on the government of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region to pressure the PKK to give up their weapons or leave the region.

Turkey blames the PKK for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, since the group began its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

Turkish warplanes and artillery have been bombing and shelling PKK positions periodically over several months, helped by intelligence provided by U.S. forces in Iraq.