The Turkish military confirmed Monday that eight of its
soldiers were missing after an ambush attack by Kurdish rebels in which 12 other
soldiers were killed.
The confirmation from the military came as dozens of military vehicles headed
toward the Iraq border and protesters across the country demanded tough action
against the rebels. The attack has pushed Turkey closer to a possible incursion
into Iraq to target Kurdish insurgents hiding there.
"Despite all search efforts, no contact has been established with eight missing
personnel since shortly after the armed attack on the military unit," the
military said in a statement posted on its Web site.
An AP Television News cameraman saw a convoy of 50 military vehicles, loaded
with soldiers and weapons, heading from the southeastern town of Sirnak toward
Uludere, closer to the border with Iraq.
It was unclear whether the vehicles were being sent to reinforce troops engaged
in fighting with rebels on Turkish soil, or were preparing for possible
cross-border action. Tens of thousands of Turkish troops are already deployed in
the border area.
About 2,000 protesters in Istanbul, mostly members of an opposition party,
denounced the attack and urged the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan to resign, the private Dogan news agency reported.
Turkey's military said Sunday it had launched an offensive backed by helicopter
gunships in retaliation for the attack, shelling rebel positions along the
rugged Turkish-Iraqi border. It said 32 rebels had been killed in the offensive
so far.
The military convoy included trucks carrying containers full of weapons, around
a dozen artillery guns and some 150 soldiers.
The rebel attack occurred four days after Parliament authorized the government
to deploy troops across the border in Iraq, amid growing anger in Turkey at
perceived U.S. and Iraqi failure to live up to pledges to crack down on the
rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, based in northern Iraq.
Erdogan said he told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a telephone
conversation on Sunday night that Turkey expected "speedy steps from the U.S."
in cracking down on Kurdish rebels and that Rice expressed sympathy and asked
"for a few days" from him.
The United States opposes any unilateral action by Turkey, fearing it could
destabilize the most stable part of Iraq.
Sunday's attack raised the death toll of soldiers in PKK attacks in the past two
weeks to around 30.
