Rice Pledges US Assist to Turkey

Heading to talks in Ankara today, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters the Kurdish militants who have attacked Turkey from northern Iraq are a "common enemy" of the US and Turkey, and promised that the US will deliver an "effective" strategy against Kurdish militants if Ankara holds off its threat to invade Iraq to rout the rebels, Reuters reports.

Rice urged restraint and warned Turkey against action that could destabilize the region. She will also seek to smooth lingering anger in Turkey over a House committee's vote last month that condemned the 1915 Turkish massacre of Armenians as genocide.  She will meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and host a three-way meeting with Iraqi and Turkish diplomats over the weekend.