Turkey reaffirms right to act in Iraq

ANKARA—Turkish President Abdullah Gul reaffirmed on Sunday Turkey’s readiness and right to intervene in northern Iraq one day after the Turkish army said it carried out an operation there against Kurdish rebels.
Kurdish officials in Iraq insisted on Sunday that there had been no Turkish military incursion, describing as baseless Ankara’s claims that significant losses had been inflicted on Kurdish rebels.
“(The army) was granted a mandate. This mandate is being used when (the army) deems it necessary,” Gul told reporters before flying to Pakistan for an official visit.
Turkey said it carried out an “intense intervention” against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels in northern Iraq on Saturday, sending in special forces after the cabinet authorized the army for cross-border operations.
A Turkish military official said about 100 special forces troops had crossed into Iraq and that long-range artillery and up to six helicopters had bombed a PKK camp after spotting a group of 50-60 rebels 20 km (12 miles) inside the border.
But Jabbar Yawar, a spokesman for Kurdistan’s Peshmerga security forces in Iraq, said there had been no incursion or shelling by Turkish forces into northern Iraq. He also said there were no casualties in the area.
A PKK official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters in Sulaimaniya in northern Iraq that the Turkish military’s claims were “lies and false allegations.”
Ankara has massed up to 100,000 troops near the mountainous border with northern Iraq, backed by tanks, artillery and warplanes ahead of a long-awaited strike against Kurdish rebels who use bases in northern Iraq to launch attacks in Turkey.
On Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the cabinet had authorized the armed forces to conduct a cross-border operation. Ankara has made many threats of military action but, under heavy U.S. pressure, has so far shown restraint.
Analysts say the Turkish army is deliberately ambiguous in its statements about what it is doing to try to keep up pressure on Iraq and the U.S. to crack down on the PKK.
A senior military official based in southeastern Turkey told Reuters that weather conditions in the border were not suitable for a large land offensive and any future operations would probably be limited to air-strikes and artillery bombardment.
“Winter conditions do not allow for a broad land offensive. Future operations will probably be limited to air-strikes and artillery bombardment,” the official said. Washington fears a major attack would create chaos in Iraq’s most stable region and possibly further afield.
About 3,000 PKK rebels, seeking a separate Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey, operate in northern Iraq. Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people since it began its armed struggle in 1984.
A leader of the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party on Sunday acknowledged the Turkish military’s attack on the group’s bases inside Iraq after initially denying it, but said there had been no casualties.
On Saturday, Turkey said it had inflicted heavy casualties on a group of “50 to 60 terrorists” inside northern Iraq, and the PKK leader denied there had been any attack that day. But in his latest comment, again speaking under cover of anonymity, the rebel leader acknowledged the strikes but denied they had caused casualties.
“There were helicopter strikes along the (Iraq-Turkey) border, but we suffered no casualties,” he told. A number of Iraqi Kurdish officials from northern Iraq had also denied the Turkish attack took place.
The Kurdish regional government of northern Iraq and Baghdad have yet to comment officially on Ankara’s claims. Turkey’s Anatolia news agency reported that combat helicopters had targeted various locations in a bid to prevent Kurdish rebels from returning to their bases inside Iraq.—Agencies