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| Iraq | |
| Turkey implementing Iraq operation, says Gen. Baþbuð | |
| 2007-11-18 | |
| Turkey is "in the process of implementing" a cross-border operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that uses northern Iraq as a base to launch attacks, a senior Turkish general said Thursday. But there were no immediate signs of increased military activity along Turkey's mountainous border with Iraq Thursday evening, Reuters reporters in the region said, suggesting any offensive was only in the preparatory stages. "We are in the process of implementing the cross-border operation," Gen. Ýlker Baþbuð, head of the Land Forces and the second most powerful man in the Turkish Armed Forces, told reporters at a diplomatic reception in the Turkish capital. Baþbuð did not spell out exactly what he meant. "When or how the motion (on a cross-border operation) will be implemented is another issue," Baþbuð said, according to the Anatolia news agency. Turkey's Parliament approved a government request last month to be able to launch cross-border operations into northern Iraq. Turkey has massed as many as 100,000 troops, backed by warplanes, helicopters and tanks, on its border with Iraq for a possible cross-border incursion to root out the separatist terrorists, blamed by Ankara for a series of attacks on its security personnel. A senior Iraqi border guards officer said there were no signs Turkey had launched a cross-border operation into Iraq. "There has been no Turkish incursion into Iraq, although there are many Turkish troops massed on the Turkish side of the border," the officer, who declined to be identified, told Reuters. One senior U.S. military official in Baghdad said he was not immediately aware of any Turkish action. Iraqi government officials could not be reached for comment. On Tuesday security sources said Turkey had sent hundreds of special forces to the border to bolster its troops there. Authorities have stepped up the rhetoric to pressure U.S. and Iraqi authorities to move against the PKK, analysts say. Washington has urged Ankara to avoid a large-scale incursion, fearing it could destabilize Iraq's most peaceful part and cause a bigger regional crisis. Baþbuð's comments followed a reaffirmation by the government this week that Turkey was ready to carry out an offensive against some 3,000 PKK members based in the mountains of northern Iraq.
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| Posted by:lotp |