In a visit to Turkey this week, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell emphasized Washington’s position that a Turkish military intervention in the Kurdish-controlled region of northern Iraq is unnecessary and inadvisable. He stressed that U.S. forces are in control of the situation there, implying that Turkish’s rationale of ‘humanitarian assistance’ in the region was unfounded. U.S. forces have been very active this week in northern Iraq, working alongside Kurdish pesh merga fighters in combat against the extremist Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, and in other operations against Iraqi forces. Powell called on Turkish officials to loosen border restrictions on trade and the channeling of humanitarian aid.
