35 killed as Kurd rebels attack Turkish troops
Foreign Desk Report

DIYARBAKIR (Turkey)—Turkey on Sunday pledged strong action against Kurdish separatists after 12 Turkish soldiers and 23 rebels were killed in a clash in the southeast of the country. Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and top ministers and military leaders were to meet Sunday to decide a response to the attack which Turkey blamed on Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels.
The PKK said it had captured some Turkish soldiers in the fighting. The government is ready to use the parliamentary authorisation it obtained Wednesday to conduct a cross-border military strike against PKK bases in northern Iraq, Erdogan said. “We will make a decision at the end of our discussion on what sort of a step we will take,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.
While he again indicated that there would be no rush to carry out an incursion, the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad passed a motion condemning Turkey’s threat to stage a raid in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. The United States is also worried about any action that could destabilize the relatively peaceful northern Iraq. “With respect to the cross-border operation, we will take all necessary steps within the framework of the authorisation,” Erdogan said. “We will act in a cool-headed manner.”
The Turkish general staff said in a statement that fighting erupted after a large group of PKK rebels infiltrated from northern Iraq and attacked the soldiers shortly after midnight Saturday. Sixteen Turkish soldiers were wounded in the fighting near the village of Daglica, in a mountainous region abutting the Iraqi border in Hakkari province.
Clashes were continuing, with helicopters providing air cover, the army said. Troops were monitoring the rebels’ escape routes and heavy artillery was pounding 63 likely targets, according to the military. A leading member of the PKK said in northern Iraq that Kurdish rebels captured Turkish soldiers in fierce fighting in the Iraqi border area.
“There were clashes between the two sides. We killed a large number of them. We took a group of Turkish soldiers as prisoners,” PKK leader Abdul Rahman al-Chadirchi told reporters. Hours after the attack, 10 civilians were injured when a mine also blamed on PKK rebels exploded as a minibus drove past near Daglica, Turkish sources said.
Several analysts, among them retired soldiers, predicted that a Turkish military operation in northern Iraq could be imminent, but Erdogan deplored the comments as “alarmist.” In Baghdad, the Iraqi parliament condemned Turkey’s moves to launch an attack.
“Iraq’s parliament unanimously votes to condemn the threat of using force to solve the dispute. It feels that the Turkish parliament’s decision to use force does not boost bilateral relations,” the motion said. Iran urged Turkey to opt for diplomatic means to resolve the dispute. “Diplomatic means should be used and dialogue should continue between Iraq and Turkey,” foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters in Tehran.
Ankara says some 3,500 PKK fighters are in bases in northern Iraq, which they use as a springboard for attacks on Turkish territory. It says the rebels are supported by Iraqi Kurdish leaders, a charge the Iraqi Kurdish administration strongly denies.