A Turkish military unit entered northern Iraq earlier this week, with the aim of launching an operation against members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who have found shelter in the mountainous region; however, the unit left the region a short time later, according to separate reports by different agencies based in Arbil and Ankara. The unit crossed Iraq's borders near the village of Kveste -- the nearest town is Amediye, 45 miles northeast of the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk -- on Wednesday night, an online news agency based in Arbil, known as the media organ of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), reported, citing unidentified sources. The same sources noted that no confrontations or pursuit took place and that the Turkish military unit left the region after a few hours, the Peyamner News Agency reported.The report came at a time when Turkey, responding to a mounting campaign of PKK violence that has left 15 security personnel dead in three days in southeastern Anatolia, had urged U.S. and Iraqi authorities to act, warning that otherwise it would carry out a cross-border operation inside Iraqi territory. The same incident was also reported by the Ankara-based ANKA news agency, citing a report by The Voice of Iraq, a private radio station based in Baghdad.
Fahmi Sofi, assistant commander of the KDP forces, told the radio station that an approximately 200-strong Turkish unit entered northern Iraq on Wednesday afternoon and moved towards Dohuk. Village guards accompanied the military unit as it penetrated two kilometers into Iraq, he said, and added that they left the region after a few hours. Earlier this week, in an apparent response to Ankara, which has recently stepped up warnings it could militarily intervene in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, head of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, said that they would consider a possible intervention by Turkey in northern Iraq as "an attack on our soil."