Turkish army clashes with Kurdish rebels, 15 reported killed
Dimitar Dilkoff
ANKARA - The Turkish army killed 15 Kurdish militants Sunday as Ankara geared up for crucial talks with the United States to tackle a simmering crisis over rebel bases in northern Iraq.
The militants were killed in a large-scale operation in the mountainous eastern province of Tunceli as some 8,000 troops, backed by helicopter gunships, assaulted rebel positions, the CNN Turk news channel reported.
Local officials confirmed an operation was under way against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but declined to give casualty figures until it is over.
Tunceli is far from the Iraqi border where clashes have recently intensified, triggering Turkish threats of an incursion into northern Iraq, where the rebels take refuge.
The military has killed 65 rebels in operations since a PKK ambush near the frontier a week ago left 12 soldiers dead.
The army has massed forces and military equipment along the border and F-16 fighter jets are ready for "orders to strike," Turkish media say.
- Dimitar Dilkoff
A recent flurry of diplomatic activity to head off military action was to continue with talks between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Turkish officials in Ankara on Thursday.
Rice will then attend a multilateral conference on Iraq in Istanbul.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari is also expected at the conference and may hold bilateral talks with his Turkish counterpart Ali Babacan, a Turkish diplomat said.
The United States is opposed to a Turkish incursion, wary of fresh turmoil in conflict-torn Iraq.
The crisis has put Washington in an awkward position between two allies -- NATO member Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds, who run northern Iraq but are reluctant to confront their ethnic brethren from the PKK.
Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani urged direct talks with Turkey Sunday, but Ankara has already said it will only speak with the Baghdad government.
- Sezayi Erken
"Let us sit down together to resolve the Kurdish question," Barzani told AFP. "I am not an enemy of Turkey, but I do not accept the language of force."
Turkey accuses the Iraqi Kurds of tolerating and even supporting the PKK, which has fought for self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives.
Foreign minister Babacan warned during a visit to Iran that Turks had "lost their patience" over what Ankara views as the impunity with which the PKK operates out of bases in northern Iraq.
"We can use diplomacy or we can resort to military means... All of these are on the table," he said.
But his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki, whose country has its own restive Kurdish minority and is also fighting PKK-linked militants infiltrating from Iraq, stopped short of voicing support for a Turkish incursion.
"There are various ways" of curbing the militants, Mottaki said. "We hope our cooperation will allow us to solve this as soon as possible."
©AFP - Mustafa Ozer
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, scheduled to meet US President George W. Bush in Washington on November 5, warned Saturday that Ankara "will launch an operation when it will be necessary, without asking for anybody's opinion."
The Turkish threat has loomed larger since Ankara dismissed Iraqi proposals to curb the PKK as unsatisfactory after crisis talks here Friday.
The talks were held in a tense atmosphere and saw some harsh exchanges, a Turkish diplomat said.
When Babacan pressed for the closure of PKK camps, Iraqi officials argued that the bases were in remote rugged mountains difficult to access.
Babacan responded bluntly that "if journalists are able to find the camps then you can certainly find them too," the diplomat said.
The foreign media has recently run interviews with PKK militants from their bases in northern Iraq.
Thousands of Turks took to the streets Sunday in fresh anti-PKK demonstrations. A small bomb exploded at a protest in Kocaeli in the northwest, slightly injuring five people.
Another anti-PKK rally in the Austrian city of Salzburg drew 3,500 protesters.
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