Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Iraq Raps Turkey on Air Strikes
by Waiel Faleh - Associated Press Writer
Posted: Thursday, December 21, 2000 08:29 pm CST

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Iraq condemned Turkey on Wednesday for renewing a permit that allows U.S. and British warplanes to use its air base to enforce a no-fly zone.

``The government of Iraq holds the Turkish government legally and internationally responsible for the damage resulting from the aggression carried out by forces from its territory against Iraq,'' the Foreign Ministry said in a statement run by the official Iraqi News Agency.

Turkey rebuffed Iraq's protest Wednesday, saying it could not ignore the instability in northern Iraq.

Turkey's parliament renewed permission Sunday for the U.S. and British air forces to use Incirlik base in southeastern Turkey.

The zone was set up to protect northern Iraqi Kurds from government forces that had brutally put down a Kurdish uprising after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Turkey has extended the permission every six months since the zone's creation.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said that while Iraq was trying to improve relations with Turkey, the Turkish government had decided to ``extend the presence of the oppressive forces.''

Iraq says the no-fly zones are illegal but the United States, Britain and France — which took part in setting up the zones — defend them as flowing from the principles laid down in U.N. Security Council resolutions and the U.N. charter.

Iraq has been challenging the zones since December 1998, firing on U.S. and British planes and incurring retaliatory airstrikes. Its government says that some 300 people have been killed in the attacks and more than 900 injured.

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