Eight Turkish soldiers who went missing during a battle with Turkish Kurdish guerrillas last month were handed over to Iraqi Kurdish officials on Sunday.  A delegation from the Turkish Kurdish People's Party arrived in Irbil to receive the freed troops and accompany them back to Turkey.
The release of the soldiers was intended to mollify Ankara which has been demanding that the Iraqi and Kurdish regional governments rein in some 3,000 paramilitaries of the Turkish Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) who are based in the inhospitable Qandil mountains along the border between Iraq and Iran.
On Saturday, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) also closed down the offices in Irbil, Suleimaniya and Dohuk of the PKK, its local affiliates, and other armed Kurdish groups.
These measures were taken with the aim of creating a positive atmosphere for Sunday’s talks in Washington between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and George W Bush. 
Erdogan and the powerful Turkish generals are threatening military action against the Kurdish region of Iraq if PKK guerrillas remain on its territory and continue to mount operations against Turkish forces inside Turkey.
The PKK is demanding autonomy and the release of its leader Abdullah Ocalan who was jailed by Turkey in 1999.  But Ankara wants the KRG to arrest and extradite senior PKK figures as well as oust the party's fighters from its territory.
US dilemma
Kadir Aziz, head of the Iraqi Kurdish Workers' Party and representative of the presidency for monitoring the work of a key commission, told Deccan Herald that the KRG has been exerting ‘strong pressure’ on the PKK to halt attacks against Turkish troops and civilians which have killed 35,000 people since 1984 and to engage in a dialogue with Ankara.
Aziz said that the US is in a very difficult position because it is allied to both Turkey, which is a Nato partner, and the Iraqi Kurds who are the only solid ally of the US in Iraq. 
He said the KRG believes Turkey's recent tough talk and mobilisation along the border are not really motivated by PKK attacks but are aimed at forcing Iraq to postpone a referendum set to take place this month.  This referendum is meant to decide whether or not the oil city of Kirkuk and several other strategic “disputed areas” claimed by the Kurds should be annexed by the Iraqi Kurdish region or remain part of the Arab governorates which have administered these areas for decades.
Iraqi Arabs and ethnic Turks (Turkomen) who live in Kirkuk and these ‘disputed areas’ strongly oppose annexation as does Turkey which says that the expansion of the Kurdish region will encourage Turkish Kurds to continue their struggle for autonomy in the southeast and enable Iraqi Kurds to attain independence through the oil revenues they would get from an annexed Kirkuk.