Kurdish govt bemused by talk of PKK offices in Iraq

By Shamal Aqrawi

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - When Iraq's prime minister, under pressure from Turkey, vowed to close the offices of rebel Kurds in Iraq, Kurdish officials were bemused.

"Let the Turkish visit Kurdistan and find the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party). Then we will shut their offices," Jamal Abdullah, spokesman for Kurdistan's government, told Reuters.

"There are no offices for this party because it is not recognized, so the Kurdistan government has no job to do."

With Turkey massing troops on the Iraqi border and threatening to invade to crush the PKK, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government has been keen to assure Ankara it wants good relations.

An aide to Maliki told Reuters it would be up to Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdistan region bordering Turkey to close the PKK's offices. Journalists working in Kurdistan say they are unaware of any PKK offices in the region.

Maliki said in a statement on Wednesday the PKK was "a bad terrorist organization and we have taken a decision to close their offices and to not allow them to work on Iraqi soil".

He gave no details of where these offices were and when action would be taken to shut them down.

"The delegation heading to Turkey will discuss the mechanism of closing down PKK offices and camps in Iraq," another adviser to Maliki, Sadiq al-Rikabi, told Reuters.