Iraqi Kurd leader says won't bow to Turkish threat

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurds are ready for dialogue to resolve tensions with Turkey but will never bow to threats, their leader said on Tuesday.

Speaking to a committee of the European Parliament, Massoud Barzani suggested that a call by Turkey's top general last month for a military operation to crush Turkish Kurdish rebels hiding in Kurdistan was connected to Turkish election politics.

However he added in remarks translated by an interpreter: "One has to be very clear that threatening language is no longer valid, the days are gone ... We are for constructive dialogue. We are not threatening anybody, but we will not accept threats from anybody as well."

Turkey, wary that Iraqi Kurdish self-rule could ignite its own Kurdish minority, has traded barbs with Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

Barzani said the Iraqi Kurds would be willing to support a political solution to the conflict between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), fighting for an ethnic Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey.

But he accused Turkey of using the PKK issue as a pretext and said Ankara was best placed to resolve the problem itself.

Turkey refuses to talk to the PKK, which it describes as a terrorist organization. The group's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, is serving a life sentence in a Turkish jail.

But Barzani said: "This is a political issue of course. This issue cannot be resolved militarily ... If they continue to dwell on the idea of a military solution, that will not be successful and we will not be ready to take part in any military solution."

Turkey is engaged in its annual spring offensive in an attempt to catch or kill rebels crossing into Turkey from mountain hideouts in northern Iraq. More than 30,000 people have been killed since the PKK launched its armed campaign in 1984.