Envoy: Russia could mediate Kurdish crisis

MOSCOW, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- A Kurdish envoy Tuesday said Russia could act as a mediator in the growing conflict between Turkish officials and Kurdish separatists in Iraq.

Babakr Khoshavi, Iraqi Kurdistan's representative to the Commonwealth of Independent States, said that Russia could use its history with the Kurds to help bring an end to the potential military crisis, RIA Novosti reported.

"Russia has a historically good relationship with the Kurds, and I believe it is quite possible for Russia to play a mediating role," Khoshavi said at a news conference in Moscow.

Khoshavi said that based on that theory, the head of the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq had contacted Russian leaders regarding such a potential role.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish envoy warned Turkey that if the country's military goes through with its threat of a military incursion into Iraq, such aggressive efforts would be doomed.

"Turkey has repeatedly attempted to enter the area, but those operations invariably failed," he said of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. or PKK, bases located in Iraq.