Kurdish leader snubs Rice after attacks on guerrillas

BAGHDAD — The president of Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government refused to meet Tuesday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, charging that the United States had given Turkey the "green light" to attack separatist Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq.

Kurdish President Massoud Barzani called the attacks "crimes" and said he wouldn't meet with Rice, the first open break between the United States and its allies in Iraqi Kurdistan, one of the few regions of the country to largely escape massive sectarian violence.

Turkey has long complained that guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, have been given shelter in Iraqi Kurdistan. The PKK seeks to form an independent Kurdistan from parts of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, and it enjoys broad support in Kurdish Iraq.

Turkish fighter jets on Sunday bombed reputed PKK positions, killing at least three people, wounding eight and displacing about 300, Kurdish leaders said. The PKK said five of its members were killed and two were injured.

On Tuesday, about 500 Turkish soldiers moved into northern Iraq, occupying the villages of Kaya Retch Binwak, Janarok and Gelly Resh, not far from the Turkish border, according to local border guards. There were no reports of fighting, but Rice's unannounced visit to Baghdad and Kirkuk, a city that's hotly contested between Kurds and Arab Iraqis, spotlighted the growing differences over how to deal with the PKK in northern Iraq.

Rice said Turkey, Iraq and the United States share an interest in stopping the PKK, but she sidestepped questions about U.S. involvement in Turkey's most recent action, saying that launching the airstrikes was Turkey's decision.

"We have made it clear to the Turkish government that we continue to have concerns about anything that leads to innocent civilian casualties or to destabilization of the north," she said during a news conference in Baghdad. "The United States has constantly counseled that we need an overall, comprehensive approach."

U.S. military commanders in Iraq didn't know Turkey had ordered the bombing missions until the planes had already crossed the border, said defense and diplomatic officials, who were angered about being left in the dark.

Americans have been providing Turkey with intelligence to go after Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

But defense and diplomatic officials in Washington and Baghdad said U.S. commanders in Iraq knew nothing about Sunday's attack until it was already under way. They spoke on condition of anonymity.

Their comments follow complaints by Iraqi leaders Monday that Turkey hadn't coordinated with Baghdad before sending bombers to strike targets of PKK.

It was left to the Americans to inform Iraqi government officials of Sunday's incursion, one U.S. official said.

In a sign of increasing tension, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported that more than 1,800 people fled their homes in parts of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdistan over the weekend.

Violence also struck Tuesday evening in Diyala province. A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest detonated in a popular cafe north of Baqouba, killing 16 and inuring 24.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.