A limbo between nations.

TURKEY AND THE U.S. CONTINUE to quarrel over the awkward status of liberated Kurds in Iraq, reports the Turkish newspaper Zaman (June 16) in an update on one of the biggest geopolitical problems nagging the State Department. With the Americans still resisting intensified Turkish attacks on northern Iraqi bases of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a terrorist group that has killed thousands of Turkish civilians, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul hopes to establish a 15-kilometre Turkish-occupied buffer zone on the Iraqi side of the common border. But the State Department has responded "coolly" to the concept, and the Iraqi government has shown little appetite for tackling the PKK, leaving open the question of how the Turks can protect themselves and whether they can remain committed to NATO in the face of the rebuffs.