( Cihan ) - Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul pressed on both Baghdad and Washington to take concrete and decisive action against the presence of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, noting that following the US-led invasion of neighboring Iraq in 2003 senior US officials had expressed their intention to halt terrorist activities launched by the PKK in Turkey.
"For this reason we established a bilateral negotiation mechanism with the US. Despite this we have not yet observed certain steps being taken against actions emanating from PKK camps in northern Iraq."
Adding that Turkey wanted to see decisive action on the issue, both from the US and the Iraqi central government, Gul said he believed that this fell within the scope of related decisions by the UN Security Council made at the time following Sept. 11.
Gul spoke for Greek daily Kathimerini, and apparently referred to Resolution 1373 of September 2001, which Ankara believes constitutes a solid and comprehensive basis for combating terrorism.
When asked whether Turkey would militarily intervene in northern Iraq within the framework of its fight against the PKK, Gul stated once again that the Turkish government had the right to take all the measures it saw as necessary in order to eliminate the terrorism threat from northern Iraq.