[NYTr] Turkey pledges strong response to Kurdish attack

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AFP - Oct 21, 2007
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/071021161800.89l8xego.html

Turkey pledges strong response to Kurdish attack

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (AFP) - Turkey vowed strong action Sunday against
Kurdish separatists after 12 of its soldiers and 32 rebels were killed
in clashes sparked by an ambush near the tense border with Iraq.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government was ready to
order a cross-border strike against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
bases in northern Iraq, and called high-level talks to decide Ankara's
response to the attack.

"We will make a decision at the end of our discussions on what sort of
a step we will take," Erdogan said, saying that top ministers and
military leaders would attend Sunday's meeting to be chaired by
President Abdullah Gul.

"With respect to the cross-border operation, we will take all necessary
steps within the framework of the authorisation," he added.

While he again indicated that there would be no rush to carry out an
incursion, the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad passed a motion condemning
Turkey's threat to stage a raid in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.

Iraqi Kurdish leaders said they would rebuff an attack on their
territory.

The United States is also wary of any action that could destabilize
relatively peaceful northern Iraq.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was due to hold talks later Sunday
with Turkish Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul in Ukraine on the first day
of a European visit.

President Gul said Ankara was determined to rout the PKK, which is
considered a terrorist group by much of the international community,
including the United States.

"As long as Iraq continues to abet terrorists, it is Turkey's right to
wipe out (the PKK)," he said.

Hundreds spilled to the streets in several Turkish cities to protest
against PKK rebels and their ever-increasing acts of violence.

Nearly 1,000 protestors carrying Turkish flags gathered in Istanbul's
central Taksim in an impromptu demonstration, chanting slogans against
jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The Turkish general staff said in a statement that fighting erupted in
a mountainous region in the province of Hakkari after PKK rebels
infiltrated from northern Iraq and attacked soldiers on patrol shortly
after midnight Saturday.

Sixteen Turkish soldiers were wounded in the fighting near the village
of Daglica, almost on the Iraqi border in Hakkari province.

Clashes were continuing, with helicopters providing air cover, the army
said. Troops were monitoring the rebels' escape routes and heavy
artillery was pounding 63 likely targets, it said.

It first reported 23 PKK rebels killed, then increased the number to
32, bringing the total number of dead in the fighting to 44.

Media reports said eight soldiers were missing in action, while a
senior PKK leader in northern Iraq said the rebels had captured a group
of soldiers.

"There were clashes between the two sides. We killed a large number of
them. We took a group of Turkish soldiers as prisoners," PKK leader
Abdul Rahman al-Chadirchi told AFP.

Hours after the attack, 17 civilians were injured when a mine also
blamed on PKK rebels exploded as a minibus drove past near Daglica,
Turkish sources said.

In Baghdad, the Iraqi parliament condemned Turkey's threat to attack.

"Iraq's parliament unanimously votes to condemn the threat of using
force to solve the dispute. It feels that the Turkish parliament's
decision to use force does not boost bilateral relations," the motion
said.

Ankara says some 3,500 PKK fighters are based in northern Iraq, which
they use as a springboard for attacks on Turkish territory.

It says the rebels are supported by Iraqi Kurdish leaders, a charge the
Iraqi Kurdish administration strongly denies.

Earlier this week, Erdogan said he expected Baghdad to shut down all
PKK camps on its territory and hand over rebel leaders.

But Iraq's president Jalal Talabani said on Sunday that Baghdad was
unable to meet the demand.

"PKK's leaders are in Kurdistan's rugged mountains. The Turkish
military... could not annihilate them or arrest them, so how could we
arrest them and hand them to Turkey?" he asked at a news conference in
Arbil.

Faced with rising rebel violence, Turkey says it is running out of
options other than military action, with neither the United States nor
Iraq doing enough to stamp out the rebel bases.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took
up arms fighting for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.