From information in the classified State Department documents exposed by WikiLeaks: ” ‘All Iraq’s neighbors were interfering, albeit in different ways, the Gulf and Saudi Arabia with money, Iran with money and political influence, and the Syrians by all means,’ Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s president and the senior Kurdish official in the government, told Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in a Dec. 10, 2009, meeting, according to a diplomatic cable. ‘The Turks are *polite* in their interference, but continue their attempts to influence Iraq’s Turkmen community and Sunnis in Mosul.’ ”
– Michael R. Gordon, “WikiLeaks Archive – Meddling Neighbors Torment Iraq,” The New York Times, Dec. 5, 2010