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Turkey urges U.S. to act over PKK |
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Written by CNN
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Monday, 22 October 2007 07:47 |
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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on the U.S. to take "speedy steps" towards cracking down on Kurdish separatists accused of launching attacks across the Turkish border from northern Iraq.
Erdogan said he had spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice late on Sunday following a deadly ambush by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters that killed at least 17 soldiers in southern Turkey, according to a report by The Associated Press.
He said Rice had expressed sympathy over the attack and asked "for a few days." Last week Turkey's parliament voted overwhelmingly to authorize a possible military incursion against PKK bases inside Iraqi territory.
In an interview conducted prior to Sunday's ambush, Erdogan told the UK's Times newspaper that Turkey would do "whatever is necessary" to defend itself.
"If a neighboring country is providing a safe haven for terrorism... we have rights under international law and we will use those rights and we don't have to get permission from anybody," said Erdogan, who was due to meet UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday in London.
Erdogan also said the U.S. risked "losing an important friend" if lawmakers passed a bill declaring as "genocide" the mass killings of Armenians by Turks during World War I.
The Turkish army confirmed on Monday that eight soldiers were still missing following Sunday's ambush. Sixteen soldiers were also wounded. The Belgian-based pro-Kurdish Firat news agency claimed seven soldiers had been taken captive, AP reported.
Shortly after the attack, a wedding convoy tripped a landmine in Daglica, Turkey, near the ambush site, a Turkish government source told CNN. The attack wounded 12 people and was believed to have been the work of PKK rebels, the source said.VideoWatch CNN's Nic Robertson report on the attack »
Turkish forces retaliated to Sunday's attack by killing at least 32 PKK fighters, according to a statement on an official government Web site.
Cross-border shelling continued on Monday as AP reported sightings of convoys containing dozens of military vehicles headed from the southeast town of Sirnak toward the Iraqi border.
Meanwhile around 3,000 protesters gathered in Istanbul to call for an immediate military strike, CNN's Paula Hancocks reported. Small protests also took place in Ankara, the Turkish capital, and other cities.
After an emergency meeting Sunday of Turkey's military and political leaders President Abdullah Gul issued a statement saying: "We will continue on our path of determination in fighting the terrorist organization. We respect Iraq's national borders. But [we] will not tolerate those who help and harbor terrorists."
Iraqi officials deny that militants are operating from territory under their jurisdiction, claiming instead that PKK leaders are hiding out in rugged mountain areas along the Turkish border that are not controlled by Iraq.
Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, who is Kurdish, addressed the rising tensions with Turkey during a meeting with Kurdish regional leader Massoud Barzani in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region.
Talabani reiterated Iraq's demand that PKK rebels lay down their arms, and re-stated calls for a diplomatic solution.
He also said Sunday that Iraqi forces were unable to find the rebel leaders because of the difficult landscape.
"The Turkish military, with its mightiness, could not annihilate them or arrest them, so how could we arrest them and hand them to Turkey?" Talabani said at a news conference following his meeting with Barzani.
When asked how Iraq's government would respond to the possibility of Turkish ground forces in northern Iraq, Barzani urged dialogue with Turkey but said Iraqi forces would act "in self-defense."
"We will not be a part of any such conflict," Barzani said. "But if we are targeted directly we will defend ourselves."
On Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said a major cross-border operation would be "contrary to Turkey's interests as well as to our own and that of Iraq" following talks with Gonul in Kiev, Ukraine.
The U.S. fears a large-scale military operation by Turkey in northern Iraq would undermine the stability of the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad and jeopardize supply lines that support U.S. troops in Iraq. |