Ankara backs Iraqi central gov't on flag controversy

By Ali Bayaslan and Fatih Hafiz Mehmet

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim late Saturday voiced support for the Iraqi central government’s decision not to allow northern Kurdish administration’s flags over the city of Kirkuk.

"We are supporting Iraqi government on this issue,” Yildirim said during a televised interview. If need be, we can enter dialogue with the UN and other institutions," he added.

The prime minister said he discussed the issue with his Iraqi counterpart Haider al-Abadi on Friday.

“We support Baghdad,” Yildirim said. “We do not accept a fait accompli. We think a decision like this, which aims to change the demographic makeup of Kirkuk, is not correct. This is clearly against Iraqi constitution."

Last week, 26 Kurdish members of Kirkuk’s provincial assembly voted in favor of raising the KRG flag alongside Iraq’s national flag outside the city’s public buildings and institutions.

On Saturday, the Iraqi parliament voted against the practice, stipulating that only the Iraqi national flag be hoisted.

However, Kirkuk’s city council chairman Rebiwar Talabani said Saturday the city would not implement the parliament’s decision.

During the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Kurdish Peshmerga forces have seized Kirkuk, prompting an influx of Kurds into the city.

Baghdad says Kirkuk is administratively dependent on Iraq’s central government, while the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party demands Kirkuk’s incorporation into the Kurdish region.

The city’s Turkmen residents, however, oppose this idea, saying Kirkuk should enjoy a “special status”.

Kirkuk’s population is mainly composed of Arab, Turkmen and Kurdish inhabitants.

-‘FETO involvement’ in Halkbank executive’s detention in NYC

Prime Minister Yildirim also touched on the detention of Turkish lender Halkbank’s deputy general manager, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, in New York on Monday on charges of conspiring to evade trade sanctions on Iran.

“It is a curious situation, not very easy to understand,” Yildirim said. “This person went there seven or eight times between 2014 and 2017. Nothing happens then, but this time they detain him.”

Halkbank on Friday defended its foreign trade transactions, including those with Iran, as "open", "transparent" and "observable".

Yildirim said he suspected the involvement of Fetullah Terror Organization (FETO) in Atilla’s detention, without elaborating.

“There appears to be a FETO hand here. It is clear that there is a FETO ruse, a FETO setup here,” he said.

Before the July 15 coup attempt, for which Turkey blames FETO, the terror group actively sought to discredit and overthrow the government, Ankara says. The group has substantial financial and political resources in the U.S., running a network of education and cultural centers in more than two dozen states and conducting lobbying at federal and state levels.

The charter schools linked to FETO, which are under an FBI investigation, have used more than $2.1 billion in taxpayer money since 2010, according to major U.S. news outlet CBS.