Gul, on the campaign trail in his home town of Kayeseri in central Turkey, told a press conference that the talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would have the objective of consolidating the friendly relations between the two countries.
During the press conference Gul highlighted one of the issues of contention between Ankara and Baghdad, that of US arms finding their way into the hands of members of the terrorist group the PKK, which has bases in northern Iraq.
“After some terrorists were arrested, security forces seized their weapons,” Gul said. “When we investigate the place of origin of those weapons, we saw that some of them were manufactured by the United States. US officials told us that those were the weapons they handed over to the Iraqi army. Everybody tries to contribute to strengthen the Iraqi army. For instance, we have undertaken training of Iraqi officers. The United States donated some weapons to the Iraqi army with good will. However, terrorists got these weapons somehow.
