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Turkey Pressured to Raid Iraq After Troops Go Missing |
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Written by Bloomberg
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Monday, 22 October 2007 15:24 |
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Turkey's government came under increasing pressure to launch a military assault on Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, after eight Turkish soldiers went missing during an attack by the group near the Iraqi border.
Thousands of Turks took to the streets of the nation's cities to call for an immediate raid on camps of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in Iraq's Kurdish controlled north. The government urged calm, saying diplomacy should be given a chance.
``We are calling for common sense and unity,'' government spokesman Cemil Cicek told reporters in Ankara after a meeting of the Cabinet. ``We hope we can avoid using the power vested by parliament to order an incursion into Iraq.''
Turkey has vowed a military assault against the PKK's bases in the mountainous Iraqi region unless the U.S. and Iraq take steps to halt attacks on Turkish targets. The price of crude oil futures rose to a record of more than $90 a barrel last week on concern an attack would disrupt oil exports from Iraq.
The PKK will announce a unilateral cease-fire tonight, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said at the Sulaymaniyah airport in northern Iraq, according to his party's Web site. Turkey has never recognized cease-fires by the PKK as legitimate during the group's two-decade battle for autonomy from Turkey.
Twelve Turkish soldiers and 34 PKK fighters have died in battles over the past two days near the Turkish village of Daglica, 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Iraqi border. Sporadic fighting continues as Turkish troops search for the missing eight soldiers, the military said today.
A PKK cease-fire is dependent on Turkey stopping attacks on its fighters and halting plans to send soldiers into northern Iraq, Agence France-Presse reported, citing a statement on the group's Web site.
Turkish nationalists, backed by members of the opposition Nationalist Action Party in parliament, are calling on the government to launch an immediate raid on PKK camps in Iraq.
In a second day of demonstrations in Istanbul, about 3,000 people chanted slogans against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Hundreds marched on offices of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, smashing windows and chanting anti-PKK slogans, according to an e-mailed statement by the group.
Turkey blames the PKK for the deaths of almost 40,000 people. The rebels, seeking a homeland for Turkey's 12 million Kurds, are designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union.
The U.S. is calling on Turkey to stay out of northern Iraq, a relatively calm area of the country, and has asked the Iraqi government to take immediate steps to ensure PKK militants don't attack targets in Turkey.
While Turkey will pursue diplomacy as a means to eradicate the threat posed by the PKK, the government ``will not flinch from using military force if and when it proves necessary,'' Foreign Minister Ali Babacan told reporters in Ankara.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Erdogan yesterday to ask Turkey for more time to deal with the threat posed by the PKK.
Talabani has rejected a call by the Turkish government to arrest the PKK's leaders in Iraq and hand them over to Turkey, saying Iraqi forces weren't capable of dealing with the group, which has about 3,500 fighters in the Kurdish enclave.
In Baghdad, the Iraqi parliament held a crisis meeting to discuss developments on the Turkish border.
Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi told the assembly that Iraq should find an immediate and peaceful solution to the diplomatic standoff with Turkey, according to a written statement by Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
The U.S. doesn't expect Turkey's army to attack PKK bases in northern Iraq in the imminent future, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters yesterday in Kiev, Ukraine.
Turkey moved artillery and about 200 tanks and other armored vehicles to strengthen military units along the border with Iraq, the Aksam newspaper reported today. |