Iraqi President Jalal Talabani ruled out a Turkish "invasion" of his country and said the cross-border crisis over Kurdish rebels was easing, in an interview published on Wednesday. "I don't think there is any danger of a Turkish invasion of (Iraqi) Kurdistan," Talabani, himself a Kurd, told Egyptian government newspaper Al-Ahram.
Turkey has massed some 100,000 troops on the border since its parliament last month approved a resolution allowing the government to order military strikes on Kurdish rebel bases in Iraq.
But Talabani said a meeting last week between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President George W. Bush had succeeded in "reducing the tension." On Tuesday, Turkish troops fought Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border on in clashes that left four soldiers dead, amid reports that Turkey hit Kurdish targets inside northern Iraq.
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