250,000 troops on the Kurdistan Border

WASHINGTON — American diplomats are quietly urging the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq to take steps that would help ease the alarm over the Turkish troops amassed on Iraq's border.
Ankara, Washington, and Baghdad all rushed yesterday to deny an Associated Press dispatch that the Turks had begun an invasion of northern Iraq in pursuit of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a group listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department and blamed by the Turks for suicide blasts in their capital this year.

An Iraqi official who spoke on condition of anonymity explained the delicate American diplomacy as follows: "The Americans want the Kurds to make their lives easier. They need the Kurdish government to show they are willing to do something to tackle terrorism in the north. They are asking for them to be creative. They don't expect them to go after every cell, but maybe alert Turkey of a threat, act on intelligence, arrest some people, make an effort."

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