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ANKARA: The Turkish army killed 15 Kurdish militants
Sunday as Ankara geared up for crucial talks with the United States
to tackle a simmering crisis over rebel bases in northern Iraq.
The militants were killed in a
large-scale operation in the mountainous eastern province of Tunceli
as some 8,000 troops, backed by helicopter gunships, assaulted rebel
positions, the CNN Turk news channel reported.
Local officials confirmed an
operation was under way against the separatist Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK), but declined to give casualty figures until it is over.
Tunceli is far from the Iraqi
border where clashes have recently intensified, triggering Turkish
threats of an incursion into northern Iraq, where the rebels take
refuge.
The military has killed 65 rebels
in operations since a PKK ambush near the frontier a week ago left
12 soldiers dead.
The army has massed forces and
military equipment along the border and F-16 fighter jets are ready
for “orders to strike,” Turkish media say.
A recent flurry of diplomatic
activity to head off military action was to continue with talks
between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Turkish officials
in Ankara on Thursday.
Rice will then attend a
multilateral conference on Iraq in Istanbul.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar
Zebari is also expected at the conference and may hold bilateral
talks with his Turkish counterpart Ali Babacan, a Turkish diplomat
said.
The United States is opposed to a
Turkish incursion, wary of fresh turmoil in conflict-torn Iraq.
The crisis has put Washington in
an awkward position between two allies—NATO member Turkey and the
Iraqi Kurds, who run northern Iraq but are reluctant to confront
their ethnic brethren from the PKK.
Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud
Barzani urged direct talks with Turkey Sunday, but Ankara has
already said it will only speak with the Baghdad government.
Turkey accuses the Iraqi Kurds of
tolerating and even supporting the PKK, which has fought for
self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984 in a conflict that has
claimed more than 37,000 lives.
Foreign minister Babacan warned
during a visit to Iran that Turks had “lost their patience” over
what Ankara views as the impunity with which the PKK operates out of
bases in northern Iraq.
“We can use diplomacy or we can
resort to military means . . . All of these are on the table,” he
said.
But his Iranian counterpart
Manouchehr Mottaki, whose country has its own restive Kurdish
minority and is also fighting PKK-linked militants infiltrating from
Iraq, stopped short of voicing support for a Turkish incursion.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, scheduled to meet US President George W. Bush in
Washington on November 5, warned Saturday that Ankara “will launch
an operation when it will be necessary, without asking for
anybody’s opinion.”
The Turkish threat has loomed
larger since Ankara dismissed Iraqi proposals to curb the PKK as
unsatisfactory after crisis talks here Friday.
The talks were held in a tense
atmosphere and saw some harsh exchanges, a Turkish diplomat
said.
 --AFP
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