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ANKARA: Turkey’s military said it attacked Kurdish separatists in
northern Iraq Saturday for the third time in less than a week,
bombing and shelling positions and warning more will follow.
“Turkish aircraft attacked between 1:35 p.m.
and 2 p.m. major positions of the terrorist organization PKK, before
Turkish artillery shelled the area for 15 minutes,” the military
said in a statement on its website.
It gave no details on targets, saying more
information would be given next week and that it would carry out
more operations despite harsh winter conditions in the mountainous
region.
The Turkish television channel NTV said the
raids were in the Amadiyah area of northern Iraq.
“It will become well understood how effective
the operations against the terrorist operations are,” the
military’s statement said. The PKK “no longer has a chance of
success” against the Turkish army.
Actions over recent weeks had left “hundreds
of terrorists” dead, it added.
In northern Iraq, Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for
the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga security force, said Turkish warplanes
had hit isolated Kurdish villages.
“In the afternoon Turkish warplanes entered
northern Iraqi airspace in an area called Al-Amadiyah. Later at
around 4 p.m. they bombed Iraqi Kurdish villages. We do not know the
extent of damage. But these areas are largely deserted and are along
the border with Turkey,” Yawar told AFP.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as
a terrorist group by Turkey and many other countries, has waged a
bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey since
1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.
Turkey has been stepping up pressure since its
parliament approved in October cross-border raids on PKK bases, with
Ankara saying the Iraqi government and its US backers were not doing
enough to halt PKK attacks.
Asked for a reaction, State Department
spokeswoman Nicole Thompson said in Washington: “The US does
view the PKK as a terrorist group and is against any acts of
violence against Turkey or Iraq. It will continue to work with the
governments of Turkey and Iraq on how they can work together to deal
with the PKK.”
The new raid follows air attacks on December 16
on the Qandil mountains near the border with Iran where Ankara
says some 3,500 PKK rebels are holed up, using the area as a springboard
for attacks on Turkey.
On Tuesday, Turkish troops penetrated into
northern Iraq from the southeast Turkish province of Hakkari, the
army said. Iraqi officials said about 500 Turkish troops took part
in the ground operation.
Ankara has accused Iraqi Kurds, who run an
autonomous administration in the north of the country, of tolerating
and even supporting the PKK.
Turkey, which has the second largest army in the
NATO military alliance after the US with 515,000 troops, has moved
around 100,000 soldiers up to its 380-kilometer (230-mile) border
with Iraq.
The United States fears that Turkey could launch
a major cross-border operation and destabilize the relatively
peaceful northern part of Iraq.
After a flurry of diplomatic activity, Iraq has
promised to rein in the PKK and in November US President George W.
Bush said Washington would provide Ankara with information on rebel
movements from its satellites.
The US administration said Wednesday that it
had been informed about the December 16 raids in advance.
Turkish chief of staff General Yasar Buyukanit
said earlier that the United States approved the December 16 air
raids by providing “intelligence” and opening Iraqi airspace.
On Tuesday the president of Iraq’s Kurdish
region, Massud Barzani, refused to meet visiting US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice in Baghdad in protest at US support for
Turkey’s strikes, a top Kurdish official said.
-- AFP
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