Turkish Troops
Enter Iraqi Kurdistan: Kurdish Official
ARBIL, Dec 18, 2007 (AFP) - Turkish troops entered Iraqi Kurdistan early on
Tuesday to flush out Kurdish guerrilla, Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Iraqi
Kurdish peshmerga security force, told AFP.
The operation is the first reported ground incursion by the Turkish military
inside Iraq since tension between Ankara and Baghdad erupted over the Kurdish
rebel issue in October.
"The area they entered is a deserted area and there is no Iraqi force or
peshmerga deployed there. We do not know how many Turkish troops" crossed the
border, Yawar said.
But an Iraqi Kurdish border security officer, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said a few hundred Turkish troops had entered and "more are coming."
A leader of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) also confirmed the Turkish
operation.
"Turkish infantry backed by aircraft entered the Iraqi borders in Khawakurt (on
the Iraq-Turkey-Iran border) at 4:00 am," he said on condition of anonymity.
A local Kurdish television channel called Kurdistan, belonging to regional
President Massud Barzani's party, said Turkish soldiers had penetrated several
kilometres (miles) inside Iraq from an area called Seedakan.
It said the troops had reached the villages of Khaya Rash, Bunwaq, Janarouq and
Kelirosh.
"The troops are now based there," the TV station added.
The ground operation comes after Turkish warplanes on Sunday bombed several
villages along the Iraq-Turkey border, targeting rebel hideouts.
The PKK has vowed it will retaliate.
"Our people have every right to defend themselves and to retaliate," the rebel
group said in a statement carried by the Firat news agency, considered to be a
PKK mouthpiece.
"This right is sacred and our people will do what is required."
The European Union and the United Nations have expressed concern over Turkish
military action inside Iraq.
The president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, Massud Barzani, has also warned
Ankara about taking military action.
"The Turkish government has committed a cruel crime against the people of Iraqi
Kurdistan when they hit Kurdish villages on the border. It is a cruel crime
against unarmed citizens," he said late on Monday.
"I want to remind everybody that the blood of the people of Kurdistan is not
cheap."
Barzani also urged Washington to abide by its "moral and legal commitment to
protect Iraq's sovereignty, Iraqi people and especially the people of
Kurdistan."
