In the face of mounting terrorist activities of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) and growing tension with the US and Iraq, Turkish government and military authorities stepped up mobilization for the fight against PKK based in northern Iraq.
Turkey's Supreme Anti-Terror Board convened on Tuesday morning under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, issuing a fresh warning of possible cross-border incursion into northern Iraq to chase separatist rebels.
The Board decided to set up the legal and logistic stage for a cross-border incursion against the PKK which is fiercely blamed for attacks that killed 15 people on Sunday and Monday.
"The institutions concerned have been given the necessary orders and instructions to take all kinds of legal, economic and political measures to end the presence of the terrorist organization in a neighboring country in the upcoming period, including if necessary a cross-border operation," said a written statement released at the end of the three-and-a-half-hour long security meeting.
The meeting was the third senior-level gathering in 24 hours to discuss how to respond after the PKK attacks left 15 soldiers dead in southeastern Anatolia on Sunday and Monday.
On Monday, a weekly Cabinet meeting focused on the anti-terror fight, and a subsequent summit attended by President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Erdogan and Chief of General Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit held later in the day vowed a determined fight and strong measures to cope with the threat.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul has vowed to take all necessary measures against Kurdish rebels, including a possible incursion into northern Iraq after a total of 13 Turkish soldiers were killed on Sunday during an attack on military units in Sirnak province in southeastern Turkey, which staged by the PKK.
Another two more soldiers were killed in mine blasts in southeastern provinces of Sirnak and Diyarbakir's Lice town on Monday.
Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said on Tuesday that any large-scale cross-border operation into Iraq would still require authorization from Parliament, but experts said a smaller-scale operation involving the "hot pursuit" of PKK terrorists across the border would not need such an authorization.
Also on Tuesday, the Turkish government sent to parliament a request for approval of a military incursion into northern Iraq to crush the PKK terrorists hiding there.
However, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington, "I am not sure that unilateral incursions are the way to go, the way to resolve the issue."
"We have counseled them both in public and private for many, many months (on) the idea that it is important to work cooperatively to resolve this issue," said McCormack.
Meanwhile, US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said that the United States would be working with Turkey and Iraq to combat the separatist PKK which has carried out a series of attacks in Turkey.
Iraqi Ambassador to Turkey Sabah Omran was emphatic in his rejection of any potential cross-border operation into Iraqi territory or hot pursuit of PKK rebels across the common border, saying such practices have no legal basis.
On Sept. 28, Turkey and Iraq signed an agreement to fight against terrorism, but still differed over Turkey's military incursion into northern Iraq to strike the PKK bases.
The counter-terrorism agreement does not include any provision allowing hot pursuit of the PKK terrorists across the border. Iraqi Kurds, who run northern Iraq, opposed such a clause, leading the Iraqi government delegation negotiating the deal to oppose Ankara's requests to that effect.
The PKK has increased its attacks on government troops in southeastern Turkey, which led to rising Turkish demands for an incursion into northern Iraq to crush the rebels based there.
The group, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.
(Xinhua News Agency October 11, 2007)
