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Turkish planes strike Iraqi Kurdistan for
the second day
24.12.2007
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December
24, 2007
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan Region 'Iraq',--,
Turkish warplanes targeting Turkey's Kurdish PKK
rebels bombed areas in Kurdistan region in 'northern
Iraq' on Sunday for the second day in a row but
caused no casualties, an Iraqi Kurdish official
said.
Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdistan
security forces (Peshmerga), said the airstrikes in
a deserted mountainous area in Kurdistan 'northern
Iraq' started at 3:00 p.m. (7:00 a.m. EST) and
lasted for more than three hours. He said the only
damage was to farmland.
Turkish fighter jets first carried out
reconnaissance in the Qandil mountains near the
border with Turkey and Iran, before bombing certain
positions, the Turkish Anatolia news agency cited
Jabbar Yawar as saying.
There was no immediate comment from the Turkish
military, which said on Saturday it planned to
continue its operations against separatist Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas inside Turkey and
across the border in Kurdistan 'northern Iraq'. |
Turkish fighter jets bombing
Iraqi Kurdistan |
If confirmed, it would be the fourth Turkish
military operation against the separatist Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) in the past week in Kurdistan
region 'northern Iraq', which Ankara says the rebels
use as a springboard for attacks in Turkey.
Turkey says it has the right to use force to combat
the PKK, which uses the semi-autonomous Kurdistan
region of northern Iraq as a launchpad to mount
attacks in which they have killed dozens of Turkish
troops in recent months.
Iraqi Kurdistan politician says, Turkey is using
Turkey's Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an
excuse to invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent
the establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq',www.ekurd.net
Turkey fears this could
fan separatism among its own large Kurdish
population in southeast Turkey.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan did not
confirm or deny a Turkish raid on Sunday.
But he defended the country's right to use military
force to attack the PKK across the border.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a
'terrorist' group by Turkey, US and EU.
Since 1984 the PKK
took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly
Kurdish southeast of Turkey. A large Turkey's Kurdish community
openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in southeast of Turkey.
The PKK demanded Turkey's recognition of the Kurds'
identity in its constitution and of their language
as a native language along with Turkish in the
country's Kurdish areas,www.ekurd.net
the party also demanded
an end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, granting them full
political freedoms.
"We all have a pretty substantial interest in
stability inside Iraq," U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan
Crocker told reporters on Sunday, before the
airstrikes were reported.
"I think none of us ... wants to see the operations
persist in a manner that can threaten stability
inside Iraq."
Turkey, which has the second largest army in the
NATO military alliance after the US with 515,000
troops, has moved around 100,000 soldiers up to its
380-kilometre (230-mile) border with Iraq.
The United States fears that Turkey could launch a
major cross-border operation and destabilise the
relatively peaceful northern part of Iraq.
After a flurry of diplomatic activity, Iraq promised
to rein in the PKK and in November US President
George W. Bush said Washington would provide Ankara
with information on rebel movements from its
satellites.
The president of Iraq's Kurdish region, Massud
Barzani, refused to meet visiting US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice in Baghdad on Tuesday in
protest at US support for Turkey's strikes, a
Kurdish official said.
Ankara has denied that civilians were hit on
December 16, blaming reports of villages being
bombed and hospitals and schools destroyed on PKK
sympathisers among Iraqi officials seeking to
mislead the international community.
The UN refugee agency has said around 1,800 people
fled their homes in Sulaimaniyah and Erbil provinces
in northern Iraq following the attacks.
Reuters | AFP
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