US calls for swift action by Iraq

Sirnak, Turkey: Turkey said yesterday it will exhaust diplomatic channels before launching any military strike into northern Iraq to root out Kurdish rebels, who killed at least a dozen Turkish soldiers in fighting over the weekend.

Turkey has built up its forces along the border with Iraq in anticipation of an incursion against rebel bases but Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has said he will hold off for a few days to let the United States try to curb the Kurdish separatists.

Washington, in turn, urged the Iraqi government yesterday to act swiftly to stop Kurdish rebels from mounting further attacks in Turkey.

"We do not want to see wider military action on the northern border," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

Washington and Iraq have been calling on Turkey to refrain from a military push into the largely autonomous Kurdish region, one of the few relatively stable areas since a US-led invasion in 2003.

The office of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said the rebels would announce a ceasefire yesterday evening.

Erdogan is under pressure from his military and the public to strike in Iraq against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels, who have killed some 40 soldiers in the past month.

After speaking with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday, Erdogan agreed to hold off for a few days and he left for an official visit to Britain yesterday.

Erdogan has been resisting a cross-border operation and his foreign minister, Ali Babacan, was quoted yesterday as saying: "We will try all diplomatic means before carrying out any military operation."

But the decades-long fight against the PKK, which wants an independent homeland in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq, is highly emotive and Ankara confirmed eight of its soldiers were missing after the recent fighting.

Turkey has deployed as many as 100,000 troops, backed by tanks, F-16 fighter jets and helicopter gunships along its border with Iraq in anticipation of a possible incursion.