Ankara (AsiaNews) – Turkey is willing to take all necessary measures, including raids into Iraqi territory, to take out Kurdish PKK separatists it suspects of hiding there, but the United States has warned Ankara against it, saying that the solution must be sought in talks between the Turkish and Iraqi governments.
Under pressure from public opinion, outraged by the PKK’s deadly attacks which cost the lives of 15 soldiers just last Sunday and Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said: “We are determined to bring this terror to an end point. . . . We will use all of our resources. Whatever is needed will be done.”
For this reason, he deliberately signalled his government’s intention to conduct a cross-border operation. “The reasons for an over the border operation exist,” he said. “We have legitimate rights. Finally, if we need to enter Iraq, we will do so.”
Erdoğan did not say when action would take place, but a government source quoted in Hürriyet said that the decision to give the go-ahead for "hot pursuit" by special Turkish armed forces over the border into northern Iraq had already been taken two days ago in a three-way summit between President Abdullah Gül, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the Chief of the Turkish General Staff General Yaşar Büyükanıt.
Answering questions from reporters regarding the possibility of a Turkish raid into northern Iraq, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack yesterday at a press conference warned against a possible Turkish intervention.
“If they [the Turks] have a problem, they need to work together [with the Iraqis] to resolve it and I am not sure that unilateral incursions are the way to go, the way to resolve the issue," McCormack said.
Nozad Hadi, governor of Arbil in northern Iraq, warned the Turks against taking any hasty initiative. “"If Turkish troops decided to enter into the Iraq's Kurdistan territories, their decision would be wrong and they would sustain heavy casualties and material losses,” he said.