|
Turkish troops enter Iraq
18/12/2007 12:08 - (SA)
Arbil - Turkish troops entered northern Iraq early on Tuesday to flush out separatist Kurdish rebels, Jabbar Yawar, spokesperson for the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga security force, told AFP.
The operation is the first reported ground incursion by the Turkish military inside Iraq since tension between Ankara and Baghdad erupted over the Kurdish rebel issue in October.
"The area they entered is a deserted area and there is no Iraqi force or peshmerga deployed there. We do not know how many Turkish troops" crossed the border into Iraq, Yawar said.
A local Kurdish channel called Kurdistan, belonging to regionional President Massud Barzani's party, said that the Turkish soldiers had penetrated several kilometres inside Iraq from an area called Seed Qan.
It said the troops had reached the villages of Khaya Rash, Bunwaq, Janarouq and Kelirosh.
"The troops are now based there," the channel said.
Tension between Iraq and Turkey has been high since October 21 when the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) ambushed a Turkish military patrol, killing 12 soldiers.
Since then Ankara has been threatening to launch a military incursion into Iraq to flush out PKK fighters hiding out in the mountainous north.
But lobbying by the United States and appeals by Baghdad stopped them from staging a full-fledged incursion.
Parliament in Ankara has also given its formal approval for the Turkish military to cross the border into northern Iraq.
The PKK has been fighting for self-rule in southeastern Turkey since 1984, and more than 37 000 people have been killed on both sides since the conflict broke out.
- AFP
|
News
