US congressman: "At one time, The US was happy to see the PKK stirring things up in Saddam's Iraq"

The US is partially responsible for the problem of the terrorist PKK which has plagued Turkey, suggested a US congressman yesterday. "We haven't always worked on the same side. There were certainly periods of time when the United States was only too happy to see the PKK stirring things up in Saddam Hussein's Iraq," Representative Rush Holt, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, told the Rumi Forum, a Washington, DC-based group promoting interfaith and intercultural dialogue. "Of course now we � and to some extent Turkey � are reaping what we have sown with the PKK." In related news, US Commander Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, who recently returned from Iraq, told a Pentagon briefing yesterday that the PKK can be urged to talk and to start negotiations.