BAGHDAD — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautioned Tuesday against any action that could destabilize Iraq after Turkey sent about 300 troops across the border in pursuit of Kurdish separatist guerrillas.
The one-day incursion began hours before Rice arrived in Kirkuk on the latest high-profile attempt at reigniting Iraq’s stalled reconciliation process after a sharp downturn in violence.
U.S. officials have touted a 60 percent drop in attacks nationwide since the military completed a 28,500-troop buildup in June. But concern is mounting in Washington about the failure of Iraqi politicians to take advantage of the ebb and pass key power-sharing legislation aimed at resolving ongoing tensions between the country’s main ethnic and sectarian groups.
Without progress on the political front, U.S. officials worry that violence could spike as U.S. troops return to prebuildup levels by the summer. Underlining the risk, a suicide bomber Tuesday killed at least 16 people and injured 28 in a Shiite Muslim village north of Baghdad.
U.S. officials are waging a delicate balancing act between two close allies: the Turkish government and the Kurdish regional authorities in northern Iraq, where Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas often hide between attacks on targets in southern Turkey.
The United States considers the PKK a terrorist organization. Turkish officials have said the United States is supplying intelligence to assist in their attacks on the militant group.
At the same time, U.S. officials do not want any steps taken that could upset stability in Iraq’s largely autonomous Kur dish region, an island of relative tranquility and economic growth.
Rice reiterated Tuesday that the United States, Iraq and Turkey share a “common interest in stopping the activities of the PKK.” But she said circumstances demanded “an overall, comprehensive approach to this problem.”
“No one should do anything which threatens to destabilize the north,” she told reporters in Baghdad.
But Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani refused to fly to Baghdad to meet Rice, citing U.S. support for limited incursions by Turkish forces fighting the PKK.
Elsewhere, police said a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a cafe in Abbara, a Shiite village about 5 miles north of Baqubah, while another suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into a police checkpoint in Baqubah, killing two people and injuring 12 others, police said.
In Baghdad, four people were killed and seven injured when a car bomb exploded at Nasr Square, police said. At least eight others were found shot to death.
