ISTANBUL, TURKEY — U.S. officials met with Iraqi and Turkish diplomats here Saturday on the crisis threatening Iraq's northern border, but key Kurdistan officials failed to offer assurances that they would move against Kurdish militants attacking Turkey from havens in their region, American officials said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice led the U.S. delegation in meetings with the foreign ministers of Turkey and Iraq amid a broader two-day gathering of Arab countries and world powers to discuss Iraq's many problems.
But Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, acknowledged that though the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan have offered support, they have not yet taken any action that shows they will move against the militants as the United States and Turkey want.
"A lot of the right things are being said," Crocker told reporters. "But what's important is that the right things are done on the ground."
Leaders of the Kurdish semiautonomous regional government in Iraq's north, especially veteran Massoud Barzani, have crucial leverage with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, whose fighters have been battling Turkish forces. Barzani's political party has fought the PKK, but it is reluctant to commit too forcefully to a battle that could be costly and could alienate Kurdish popular sentiment.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has less leverage with the guerrillas, but he vowed Saturday to take action.
"Iraq should not be a base for attacks against neighbors," Maliki told delegates at the meeting. "We will cooperate with our neighbors in defeating this threat."
Crocker said that the meeting was a productive step in the run-up to a meeting Monday at the White House between President Bush and Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan.
The Turkish government, which has about 100,000 troops massed on its border with Iraq and is under intense domestic pressure to strike against the PKK, has said it will give the Bush administration only a few more days to find alternative solutions that would avoid destabilizing the northern Iraqi region.
Crocker rebuffed questions about a reported U.S. proposal under which Turkey, the United States and Iraq would begin a campaign to stop the 3,500-member militant group. He said the matter was between Bush and Erdogan, who will be accompanied by the No. 2 officer in the Turkish army to show his seriousness about possible military action.
