Vendredi 2 decembre 2005 à 11h16
ANKARA, Dec 2 (AFP) — Turkey is to reopen a consulate in Mosul, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in Ankara on Friday, describing the Kurdish-dominated area around the northern Iraqi town as a Turkish "hinterland."
"Northern Iraq is an area of interest for Turkey, it's our hinterland," he told the Aksam newspaper.
Stressing that maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity was a top priority for Turkey, Gul said that the success of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan was in large part due to Ankara's contribution.
"Turkey cannot be marginalised there," he said.
Gul gave no date for the opening of the Mosul consulate, but said it would be headed by Huseyin Avni Botsali, an official from the ministry's Middle East desk.
Turkey already has an embassy in Baghdad.
Ankara is worried that the region would be destabilised if Iraqi Kurdistan, which lies next to Turkey, became fully independent.
Until US troops arrived in 2003, the Turkish army frequently mounted raids into northern Iraq to chase Kurdish separatist rebels.
Les informations ci-dessus de l'AFP n'engagent pas la responsabilité de l'Institut kurde de Paris.