US Warns Turkey

Tensions Rise as Turkey Shells Iraq

Turkish patience is running out over the cross-border raids by Kurdish militants based in northern Iraq. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has urged caution, but Ankara is openly debating an incursion to root out the rebels. And it plans to take its case for action to the UN this week.

Turkey has been building up its military presence on the country's south-western border with Iraq.

The signs have become increasingly ominous. For weeks, Turkey has been building up its military presence on its south-eastern border with Iraq in response to cross-border raids by Kurdish rebels. Potentially more concerning, Ankara has been openly considering an incursion into Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq in an attempt to root out members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) based there.

On Sunday, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates saw the situation as sufficiently heated to issue a warning to Ankara. "We hope there would not be a unilateral military action across the border into Iraq," Gates told reporters on Sunday.

Speaking after meeting with Asian government officials in Singapore, Gates said he sympathized with the Turkish frustration over the raids launched by Kurdish rebels from across the border. "The Turks have a genuine concern with Kurdish terrorism that takes place on Turkish soil," he said. "So one can understand their frustration and unhappiness over this."

But Ankara is unlikely to be placated by US sympathy. Indeed, the Turkish military shelled Kurdish positions on the Iraqi side of the border on both Sunday and Monday, according to the Belgium-based Firat news agency. Furthermore, the Dogan news agency reported that a suicide bombing had killed three soldiers at a military outpost in south-eastern Turkey on Monday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül asserted his country's right to act on Monday, telling visiting European Union officials: "We have every right to take measures against terrorist activities directed at us from northern Iraq."

And in an attempt to further highlight the issue, Ankara is to deliver a report to the United Nations this week, setting out its legal right to take action against the rebels. A Turkish foreign ministry official told Reuters on Monday that the country's UN representative Baki Illkin would hold talks with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week. "More cooperation from the United Nations is requested on this matter."

Ankara has long been urging US and Iraqi forces to crack down on the estimated 4,000 PKK guerrillas based in northern Iraq. But bogged down coping with the ongoing violence in the center of the country, they have been happy for the Kurds to run things themselves in the north.

Shelling rebel positions

The leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, Massoud Barnzani, condemned the Turkish military action. "We reject any interference in Iraqi affairs and we do not accept any presence of Turkish forces on Iraqi lands," he said at a press conference on Sunday after meeting with the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, a fellow Kurd.

On Saturday Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was visiting the Kurdish north, had urged Turkey not to take any military action in the region. He told reporters that his government would not allow the relatively peaceful area be turned into a battleground. "If there are some problems, we should not rely on weapons or threats, or use violence and power because this will increase tension and deepen problems."

smd/ap/reuters