Turkey attacks Kurds

Turkish troops backed by air power crossed into northern Iraq in their first major ground offensive against Kurdish rebel bases in nearly a decade.

The Turkish military said it killed dozens of militants, but the country sought to avoid confrontation with US-backed Iraq, saying the guerrillas were its only target.

The offensive, which started on Thursday night after aircraft and artillery blasted suspected rebel targets, marked a dramatic escalation in Turkey’s fight with the PKK rebel group even though Turkish officials described the operation as limited.

The military said five of its troops and 24 Kurdish rebels were killed in clashes. At least 20 more rebels were killed by artillery and helicopter gunships, it said.

Artillery units positioned on the Iraqi-Turkish border near the border town of Cukurca, further east, could be heard firing shells across the border on Friday evening, Dogan news agency reported.

A military officer of the US-led coalition in Iraq said several hundred Turkish soldiers had crossed the border. The coalition has satellites as well as drones and other surveillance aircraft at its disposal.

Sky-Turk television said about 2,000 Turkish soldiers were in Iraq, operating against rebel camps about 2-2.5 miles in from the border. NTV television said a total of 10,000 soldiers were inside Iraq in an operation that had extended six miles past the frontier. The activity was reportedly occurring about 60 miles east of Cizre, a major town near the border with Iraq.

It was not possible to independently confirm the size or scope of the attack on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is considered a terrorist group by the United States and European Union. CNN-Turk television, citing Turkish security officials, said the operation could last two weeks.

“Twenty-four terrorists were killed and many others were wounded,” the military said in a statement posted on its website last night.

“It is estimated that at least 20 more terrorists were rendered ineffective by artillery and helicopter gunships.”

The advance was the first confirmed Turkish military ground operation in Iraq since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Turkey’s army is believed to have carried out unacknowledged “hot pursuits” in recent years, with small groups of troops staying in Iraq for as little as a few hours or a day.

Turkey staged about two-dozen attacks in Iraq during the rule of Saddam, who conducted brutal campaigns against Iraqi Kurds. Some Turkish offensives, including several in the late 1990s, involved tens of thousands of soldiers. Results were mixed, however, with rebels suffering combat losses but regrouping after Turkish forces withdrew.

The PKK militants are fighting for autonomy in predominantly Kurdish south-eastern Turkey and have carried out attacks on Turkish targets from bases in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. The conflict started in 1984 and has claimed as many as 40,000 lives.

Turkey’s government has complained that Iraqi and US authorities were not doing enough to stop guerrilla operations. The Turkish air force has been staging air raids on PKK forces in the north since December with the help of intelligence provided by the US, a Nato ally.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he called his Iraqi counterpart, Nouri Maliki, on Thursday night to give him advance warning of the operation. Mr Erdogan said he later briefed US president George Bush in a telephone call.

“The Turkish armed forces will return after they finish their job,” Mr Erdogan said in a televised speech. “The goal of the operation and of operations that will be conducted is just, and only, PKK camps located in the north of Iraq.”

Confirming the advance notice, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the Bush administration was urging Turkey to show restraint.

“We continue to express our absolute solidarity with Turkey about the PKK. This is a common enemy of the United States and Turkey,” US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said in Washington.

But she stressed: “We’ve also been very clear, though, that stability and progress for Iraq is in the interest of Turkey. And so, everything should keep in mind that nothing should be done to destabilise what is a fragile, but improving situation in Iraq.”

Nihat Ali Ozcan, a terrorism expert with at the TEPAV research centre in Ankara, said the operation was probably launched to hurt guerrillas before the traditional start of the fighting season in the spring.