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Turkey denies troops entered
Kurdistan-Iraq but tough on Kurds
26.4.2006
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ANKARA, April 26
(Reuters) - Turkey denied on Wednesday a news report
that its troops had crossed into Kurdistan (northern
Iraq) in pursuit of Kurdish militants, but it also
said the new government in Baghdad must help crack
down on the rebels.
Around 3,000 members of the banned Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK) are believed to be hiding in the
mountains of mainly Kurdish northern Iraq, from
where they slip across the border to attack Turkish
security forces.
The head of Turkey's military General Staff, General
Hilmi Ozkok, reaffirmed last Sunday Turkey's right
under international law to carry out cross-border
operations to root out the militants if that was
deemed necessary.
"At the present time, there is no hot pursuit (of
rebels) beyond our borders," a Turkish official told
Reuters, denying a report in the Bugun newspaper
that Turkish special forces had spent several days
inside Iraq and that Baghdad had complained.
Turkey's NTV television quoted Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani on Tuesday as expressing concern about a
buildup of both Turkish and Iranian troops on Iraq's
northern borders and saying Baghdad would not allow
foreign meddling in its affairs.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement it
had informed Iraq's ambassador to Ankara on
Wednesday about the Turkish troops movements near
the border, which it described as part of an annual
spring offensive against the PKK.
"The presence of the PKK in Iraq and its activities
make these measures necessary," ministry spokesman
Namik Tan said in the statement, adding that Turkey
expected the new Iraqi government to help actively
to suppress the rebel group.
Turkey, which has the second biggest army in NATO,
announced last week it was sending 40,000 extra
troops to join around 250,000 soldiers already
stationed in the southeast to help deal with an
expected rise in PKK incursions from northern Iraq.
In talks in Ankara on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice tried to reassure Turkey that
Washington was committed to defeating the PKK. The
United States and the European Union both class the
PKK as a terrorist group. Ankara blames the PKK for
the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the
group launched its armed campaign for an independent
Kurdish state in southeast Turkey in 1984.
Violence fell sharply after the 1999 capture of PKK
leader Abdullah Ocalan, but it has begun to regain
momentum since the group ended a unilateral
ceasefire in 2004.
Last week, Iran shelled positions of Iranian Kurdish
rebels in northern Iraq. The Iranian Party of Free
Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) is an Iranian wing of
Turkey's PKK, security experts say.
Reuters
Southeast Turkey: Northern Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey)
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