TURKEY: Turkey plans Iraq incursion to quell Kurdish militant attacks

Record ID: 217515

  • Title: TURKEY: Turkey plans Iraq incursion to quell Kurdish militant attacks
  • Date: 13th October 2007
  • Summary: (BN10) SIRNAK, TURKEY (OCTOBER 12, 2007) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS NEAR IRAQI BORDER SOLDIER SEARCHING MINES ALONG ROADSIDE ARMOURED MILITARY VEHICLE, WITH SOLDIER CHECKING WITH BINOCULARS SOLDIER SEARCHING MINES ALONG ROADSIDE SOLDIERS WALKING ARMY HELICOPTER FLYING TANK BEING CARRIED BY TRUCK
  • Embargoed: 28th October 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA3CXYHB20K04EGYSHBDCM6B0JR
  • Story Text: Kurdish guerillas based in northern Iraq open fire on Turkish army as Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan defends his nation's planned military incursion against Kurdish militants into Iraq.
    Kurdish separatist rebels said on Friday (October 12) they were crossing back into Turkey to target politicians and police after Ankara said it was preparing to attack them in the mountains of northern Iraq.
    A soldier was wounded after PKK guerillas in northern Iraq fired on a military control point in Turkey, the Turkish Dogan News Agency reported.
    Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said his government was ready for any world criticism if Turkey launched an attack against some 3,000 PKK rebels who use north Iraq as a base to attack Turkish targets.
    "We don't need anyone's advice on northern Iraq and the operation to be carried out there," Erdogan told a cheering crowd in Istanbul on Friday.
    Washington harbours growing concerns about the possibility of a major Turkish military incursion to crush Kurdish rebels seeking a homeland in eastern Turkey. U.S. officials fear such an action could destabilise a relatively peaceful area of Iraq.
    As regional tensions rose, Erdogan cautioned that relations between Ankara and Washington were in danger over a U.S. congressional resolution branding as genocide Turkey's massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.
    Referring to relations with the United States and the resolution, Erdogan, using a Turkish idiom usually employed to describe relations, said: "Where the rope is worn thin, may it break off." He did not elaborate.
    The PKK said its fighters planned to carry out attacks against the ruling AK Party, the main opposition CHP and the police unless certain conditions were met. It did not elaborate.
    Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the group launched its armed struggle for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.
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