Cizre, Turkey: Turkish warplanes and troops attacked Kurdish rebels inside Iraq this week, security sources said yesterday, but Ankara wants to hold back from any major incursion for now to give diplomacy a chance.
Turkey moved more troops to the mountainous border, keeping up pressure on Baghdad to honour promises to crack down on an estimated 3,000 rebels of Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who use the region as a base.
Security sources confirmed a series of sorties between Sunday and Tuesday evening in which Turkish warplanes flew 20km into Iraq and some 300 ground troops advanced about 10km.
"Further hot pursuit raids into northern Iraq can be expected, though none have taken place so far today [Wednesday]," a military official said. The sorties killed 34 PKK rebels and all the Turkish troops involved in the operations were now back in Turkey, he said.
Extradition
Anatolia reported that several F-16 warplanes loaded with bombs and attack helicopters took off from an air base in southeastern city of Diyarbakir. The warplanes and helicopter gunships bombed mountain paths used by rebels to infiltrate from Iraq.
But Abdul Rahman Jaderji, a PKK spokesman in northern Iraq, said there had been no direct fighting between the two sides since clashes on Sunday. Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer meanwhile hailed Turkey for showing "remarkable restraint" so far in its efforts to tackle the rebels in Iraq.
"If I look at the Turkish government as it has acted up till now I think the Turkish government is showing restraint - remarkable restraint under present circumstances," he said.
In Baghdad, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told Ankara that his country could hand over Kurdish rebels holed up in northern Iraq to Turkey, a government source said. In response, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said it would be a "good first step" if Iraq extradited 100 rebels named on a list.
Rice exhorts Congress to drop genocide Bill
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged US lawmakers yesterday to drop an Armenian "genocide" resolution, warning of the strategic fallout on sensitive ties with Turkey.
"This is a very delicate time with Turkey," she told the House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee, which voted two weeks ago to label the Ottoman Empire's First World War massacre of Armenians as genocide. "We have extremely important strategic interests with the Turks," Rice said, appealing to the House as a whole not to vote on the controversial resolution, AP reported.
