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Turkey confirms 8 soldiers are missing after ambush by PKK |
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Written by The International Herald Tribune
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Monday, 22 October 2007 15:21 |
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Eight Turkish soldiers were still missing Monday, the military said, after the ambush by Kurdish militants that killed at least 12 soldiers and touched off a major escalation in Turkey-Iraq tensions.
"Despite all search efforts," the military said, "no contact has been established with eight missing personnel since shortly after the armed attack on the military unit."
According to The Associated Press, Firat, a pro-Kurdish news agency based in Belgium, released the names of seven people it said were Turkish soldiers captured by separatist fighters in the ambush early Sunday. It said an eighth soldier was also taken captive but did not release his name. The claim could not be verified.
The ambush brought fears that Turkey would immediately retaliate by sending troops across the border into Iraq, and Turkey continued to bolster its forces at the border Monday, including land and air units. But in advance of his departure for a two-day trip to London, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had delayed a decision about retaliation after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice intervened.
Erdogan convened an emergency security meeting with Turkey's top officials on Sunday night in Ankara, the capital, to discuss an appropriate response. Rice called him shortly before the meeting began, Erdogan said on national television.
"She expressed their seriousness in this matter by not only saying that they assessed the issue in a highly sensitive way," Erdogan said, "but also, beyond emphasizing our righteousness, she said, 'Allow us a few days.' "
At a news briefing Monday, the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, did not dispute the account of the conversation, The Associated Press reported, but he declined to comment on what Rice had meant by asking for "a few days."
"We do not believe unilateral cross-border operations are the best way to address this issue," he said, describing Rice's call to Erdogan. "In our view, there are better ways to deal with this issue."
McCormack said Rice had called Erdogan and Massoud Barzani, leader of the Iraqi regional Kurdish government.
The ambush, by a large group of Kurdish militants inside Turkey near the Iraq border, was seen as a direct provocation on the part of the militants, who have increasingly staged raids into Turkey from hideouts in the mountains of northern Iraq.
The attack, by the separatist fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party, which is known as the PKK and is outlawed, came four days after the Turkish Parliament formally approved contingency plans for military retaliation across the border. McCormack repeated the U.S. view that the PKK is a terrorist organization.
McCormack said Rice had told both Erdogan and Barzani that "we are going to do everything we can to encourage Turkey and Iraq to work together to address what is a common threat."
The Turkish military retaliated inside Turkey for the ambush, killing as many as 34 Kurdish militants, the military said Monday, a higher number than had been reported. But the ambush still drew strong public outrage here, and its brazenness could effectively force the government to make good on its warning to send forces into northern Iraq.
The confrontation over PKK activities in northern Iraq has brought Turkish-American relations to their lowest point in years. Turkey says the United States, a NATO ally that has military control over northern Iraq, should do more to help fight the Kurdish group, which has killed nearly 40 Turkish soldiers in recent weeks in cross-border raids. Erdogan said he expected the United States to take "swift steps" against the militants.
Turkey has worked hard to avoid military action, said a Western official, because it knows that an offensive would damage relations with the United States as well as Turkey's bid to join the European Union, a goal that Erdogan's government has aggressively pressed.
"We don't want to go into northern Iraq - it's a mess," said Suat Kiniklioglu, a lawmaker from Erdogan's party who is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. "We are a country negotiating with the European Union."
Kiniklioglu added: "I think we've passed the threshold. It looks like for two days or three days there will be a holding off and a waiting period. Unless the U.S. comes up with something magic in the next few days, which is highly unlikely, we'll probably go in."
Iraqi officials offered a mixed response. "We are looking for peace, not war, and to solve problems peacefully," said President Jalal Talabani. But Talabani, who is himself a Kurd, added tartly, "We will not hand any Kurdish man to Turkey, even a Kurdish cat."
Talibani's office said Monday that the PKK was on the verge of announcing a cease-fire after he called on it to lay down its arms and leave Iraq. That view that brought a skeptical response from Erdogan.
"These assessments of Talabani do not personally satisfy me," he said. "It is beautiful to say such words. The expressions are beautiful. But we would like to see what its outcome is going to be."
In Washington, McCormack said that as Rice was speaking to Erdogan and Barzani, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, was making similar points in Baghdad with Talabani and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Maliki visited Turkey in August, and the two countries concluded a security agreement in September, though the regional Kurdish government repudiated it.
Turkish officials said statements would no longer help. "Statements on terror will not satisfy us," Cemil Cicek, a government spokesman, said in a televised news conference. "In terms of statements, there has been nothing left unspoken. We expected and will expect firm steps from our counterparts. At this point, there is no importance of anything said by anyone." |
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