Barzani Slams Turks

Juan Cole 12/25/2007

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Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani on Monday lashed out at Turkey for its air strikes on Iraq. Turkey says it hit terror bases.

Bush strongly backed Turkey with a call to PM Erdogan.

The US had depended heavily on the Kurds in Iraq. Is this the beginniing of a major rift?

Turkey says that its Dec. 16 air strikes, involving 50 jets, killed 150 PKK guerrillas. This is a larger death toll than earlier suspected and won’t improve Barzani’s mood.

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page