[NYTr] Turkish troops, weapons head toward Iraq

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP - Oct 22, 2007
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TURKEY?SITE=ININS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Turkish troops, weapons head toward Iraq

By VOLKAN SARISAKAL
Associated Press Writer

SIRNAK, Turkey (AP) -- Dozens of Turkish military vehicles loaded with
soldiers and heavy weapons rumbled toward the Iraq border on Monday
after an ambush by guerrilla Kurds that killed 12 soldiers and left
eight others missing.

Iraq's president said the rebels would announce a cease-fire. Turkey's
government, which has rejected similar announcements in the past, said
the country will pursue diplomacy before it sends troops across the
rugged frontier.

Turkey's military said it lost contact with the eight soldiers after
Sunday's clash and said 34 guerrillas had been killed so far in a
counteroffensive. A pro-Kurdish news agency said the eight were
captured - a claim that would make it the largest seizure since 1995,
when guerrillas grabbed eight soldiers and took them to northern Iraq.

"Right now, these soldiers are hostages in the hands of our forces,"
the pro-Kurdish Firat News Agency quoted a rebel commander, Bahoz
Erdal, as saying.

Erdal said the soldiers' families should not worry about the fate of
their sons: "We have not harmed them and we will not."

The ambush on Sunday outraged an already frustrated public.
Demonstrations erupted across the country and opposition leaders called
for an immediate strike against rebel bases in Iraq, despite appeals
for restraint from Iraq, the U.S., and European and Arab countries.

In Washington, the State Department said the United States has opened a
diplomatic "full court press" to urge Turkey not to invade northern
Iraq.

"In our view, there are better ways to deal with this issue," spokesman
Sean McCormack said, stressing that the United States regards the
Kurdistan Workers' Party, known by its Kurdish acronym PKK, as a
terrorist organization.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said the PKK would make a cease-fire
announcement. Kurdish rebels last declared a cease-fire in June and the
rebel group said Monday that it was still in place, the Firat News
Agency reported.

Turkey has rejected several past unilateral cease-fires declared by
rebels, saying it would maintain fighting until all rebels surrender or
are killed. In the past, rebels have pressed ahead with attacks despite
cease-fires on grounds that they were defending themselves.

Talabani's made the remarks to reporters at the airport in the Kurdish
city of Sulaimaniyah before flying to Baghdad; his office confirmed
them. More details were not immediately available.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he told Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice in a telephone conversation Sunday that Turkey
expected "speedy steps from the U.S." in cracking down on Kurdish
rebels and that Rice, who called the Turkish leader, asked "for a few
days" from him.

McCormack did not dispute the account of the conversation but declined
to comment on what Rice had meant by asking for "a few days."

Erdogan did not specify what he meant by "speedy steps," but he has
often urged the United States and Iraq to crack down on the PKK.
Turkish leaders say it is the responsibility of those countries to do
whatever is necessary to destroy the guerrilla group's bases in
northern Iraq.

"We will continue these diplomatic efforts with all good intentions to
solve this problem caused by a terrorist organization," Foreign
Minister Ali Babacan told reporters in Kuwait. "But in the end, if we
do not reach any results, there are other means we might have to use."

Babacan has been touring Arab countries to explain his country's plans.

After days of silence on the crisis, Egypt and Jordan on Monday
cautioned Turkey against launching an offensive, a reflection of Arab
countries' fears of widening the Iraq conflict.

Arab nations traditionally oppose any foreign incursion into a fellow
Arab state, but they also have growing ties with Turkey and oppose
Kurdish separatist movements.

Alone among Arab countries, Syria has already come out in support of
Turkey, saying it has a right to take action against the guerrillas.

The Turkish military confirmed Monday that eight of its soldiers were
missing after the ambush by Kurdish rebels that left 12 other soldiers
dead and brought the northern Iraq border area to the brink of war.

"Despite all search efforts, no contact has been established with eight
missing personnel since shortly after the armed attack on the military
unit," the military said in a statement on its Web site.

The last major kidnapping was in 1995, when Kurdish guerrillas grabbed
eight soldiers and took them to bases in northern Iraq, where the group
is still headquartered. The rebels released the soldiers two years
later after human rights activists, lawmakers and family members
visited the rebel hide-out.

An AP Television News cameraman saw a convoy of 50 military vehicles,
loaded with soldiers and weapons, heading from the southeastern town of
Sirnak toward Uludere, closer to the border with Iraq.

It was unclear whether the vehicles were being sent to reinforce troops
engaged in fighting with rebels on Turkish soil or were preparing for
possible cross-border action. Tens of thousands of Turkish troops are
already deployed in the border area.

Protests were staged in Istanbul, Ankara and the eastern Turkish city
of Bilecik, where 13,000 schoolchildren held a minute of silence while
people marched down a main street, waving the Turkish flag, local media
reported. In Bursa, in northwest Turkey, some protesters walked to a
military conscription office and asked to enlist to fight rebels.

Turkey's military said Sunday it had launched an offensive backed by
helicopter gunships in retaliation for the attack, shelling rebel
positions along the rugged Turkish-Iraqi border.

More than 30,000 people have died in the conflict that began in 1984.

Out of respect for the soldiers killed Sunday, a concert by American
R&B singer Beyonce Knowles in Istanbul was canceled, a soccer club that
was organizing the event said on its Web site Monday.

© 2007 The Associated Press.