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ANKARA, July 14 (AFP) - 9h37 - Turkey reserves
the right to make military incursions into
neighboring northern Iraq to pursue Turkish Kurd
rebels who have found refuge there, Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying Thursday.
Erdogan said Turkey had no immediate plans for such
a cross-border operation, but renewed his criticism
of the United States for failing to clamp down on
rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) camps based in
northern Iraq since 1999.
"There are certain things that international law
allows. When necessary, one can carry out
cross-border operations," the Anatolia news agency
quoted Erdogan as saying in a television program
late Wednesday.
"This can be done when the conditions require,"
Erdogan said. "We hope that such conditions will not
emerge."
Before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when the
north was outside Baghdad's authority, the Turkish
army regularly made incursions into northern Iraq to
pursue PKK militants with tacit US approval and
ground support from Iraqi Kurds who control the
region.
The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by the
United States and the European Union, retreated to
northern Iraq in 1999 after declaring a unilateral
ceasefire following the capture of its leader
Abdullah Ocalan.
The PKK ended the truce in June 2004 and began
infiltrating back into Turkey, raising tensions in
the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Some 100 Turkish soldiers and PKK militants have
been killed in a resurgence of violence in the
region over the past three months.
The rebels have also attacked civilian targets: they
blew up a train earlier this month, killing five
people, and last week bombed a popular resort on the
Aegean coast, leaving about 20 people injured.
Much to Ankara's disappointment, the US has been
reluctant to employ military measures against the
PKK in northern Iraq, saying it is swamped by
violence in other parts of the country.
"One cannot fight terrorism by just saying, 'I've
put them on my list of terrorist organizations,'"
Erdogan said.
"If you have put them on a list of terrorist
organizations and if the terrorists are in your
hands, you must do what is required," Erdogan said.
"Otherwise, these terrorists will one day hit you
too."
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed about
37,000 lives since the PKK took up arms against
Ankara in 1984.
AFP
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