ANKARA, Jan 10 (AFP) The head of a leading Kurdish faction in northern Iraq has
 invited Turkish businessmen to invest in the Kurdish-held enclave, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent
 Ecevit said Wednesday.

 Speaking to reporters outside his office, Ecevit said that following the request, he had enabled
 Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), to meet with the Turkish
 Union of Commercial Chambers during a visit to Ankara.

 "If such a cooperation is formed and investments are made in the region, all the people in the
 region, be they Kurds, Turkmens or Arabs, will benefit from it," Ecevit said.

 Talabani, for his part, said that he had asked Turkish officials for political, economic and cultural
 support.

 Asked whether he had requested military help from Turkey to fight Kurdistan Workers Party
 (PKK) rebels sheltering in the region, the PUK leader said: "Not yet." He did not elaborate.

 "There is full cooperation against anyone who will try to disturb peace and stability in the
 region," Talabani told reporters after meeting Ecevit.

 The PKK, which has waged a 15-year armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey's
 southeast, said that it would stop fighting and withdraw from Turkey from September 1999 to
 seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

 Talabani, who controls a section of northern Iraq close to the Iranian border, said Tuesday that
 some 8,000 PKK militants had moved to northern Iraq since the group announced its decision.

 About 6,000 PKK rebels were in the PUK sector, while 2,000 others were in the area bordering
 Turkey, which is controlled by PUK's arch-rival, the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP), he
 told the NTV news channel.

 After meeting a senior foreign ministry official, the PUK leader vowed to purge all PKK rebels
 from his regions of authority.

 "We will oblige them by all means to leave our area," he told reporters.

 Ecevit announced at the weekend that Turkish troops in northern Iraq were providing "technical
 help" to PUK and KDP in their struggle against the PKK.

 The Turkish army regularly launches operations against the PKK in the north of Iraq, which has
 been outside Baghdad's control since 1991, saying that the PKK uses it as a springboard for
 attacks against Turkey.

 The incursions draw strong criticism from Baghdad, which accuses Ankara of violating its
 territorial integrity.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com