Turkish official warns of chaos if Iraq is split up

ANKARA, TURKEY — Turkey’s foreign minister warned Sunday that dividing Iraq along religious or ethnic lines would create chaos, and suggested that neighboring nations would not acquiesce to a partition.

“There are those who think that dividing Iraq might be better, that this chaos might end,” Abdullah Gul told reporters. “This is what we say: Don’t even think of such an alternative because that would lead Iraq toward new chaos.”

Gul suggested that dividing Iraq would lead to regional unrest. “It would become not only Iraq’s problem but the world’s problem,” he said.

Turkey, which shares a border with Iraq, has its own large and restive Kurdish population and is wary that any moves toward a Kurdish state in Iraq would strengthen separatist sentiment among Turkey’s Kurdish population.