ISTANBUL
The Secretary General of the Iraqi Islamic Party Iyad al-Samarrai said on Friday that the majority of Kurdish people viewed PKK as a terrorist organization.
In an exclusive interview with the Anadolu Agency (AA), Samarrai said that "a majority of Kurds living in Iraq looked at the PKK as a terrorist organization. However, they do not have sufficient strength to end PKK's activities in Iraq".
"The tension and problems between the regional administration in north of Iraq and the central government in Baghdad must be resolved soon. Violence in Iraq and the social breakdown are a result of the U.S. invasion of 2003," Samarrai argued.
"Occupation forces incited clashes between ethnic groups and sects. Our people are in a great economic difficulty. More than one million of our people lost lives in the process. More than half a million have been placed in prisons. The United States is accountable for all the problems in Iraq today," Samarrai stated.
Touching on Turkish-Iraqi relations, Samarrai said that Turkey was Iraq's biggest trade partner.
"The trade volume between Turkey and Iraq surpassed 12 billion USD. Tension between Turkey and the central Iraqi government at times (negatively) affect commercial relations," Samarrai stressed.
Evaluating allegations against the Iraqi Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi that he was involved in terror acts, Samarrai argued that the issue was a political one.
"The central Iraqi government must approach problems more sensitively," Samarrai also said.
