Middle East News
US urges quick end to Turkish military assault in Iraq
Feb 26, 2008, 19:23 GMT
Washington - The United States on Tuesday urged Turkey to end its military incursion in northern Iraq 'as quickly as possible' as tension increased between Baghdad and Ankara over the assault on Kurdish PKK rebels.
'What we would like to see happen, again, is to see these military actions conclude as quickly as possible,' State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said.
The United States was working closely with the Iraqi and Turkish leaders to encourage dialogue about Turkey's latest effort to go after PKK separatists who use bases in Iraq to carry out attacks on Turkish soil.
'To the extent that there is a role for us to help facilitate and bring the two sides together for further diplomatic discussions on that, we're certainly going to pursue it,' Casey said.
Turkey's incursion with 10,000 troops began five days ago amid assurances from Ankara that it was strictly limited to hitting the PKK and did not threaten the Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq.
The United States has supported Turkey's right to go after the PKK, which Washington regards as a terrorist organization, but has also worried a Turkish assault could destabilize one of the relatively more peaceful areas of Iraq.
Iraqi cabinet spokesman Ali al-Dabagh said PKK activities in Iraq were not acceptable and warned that in the past the military assaults have not been very effective.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
The Nato & the EU & the U.S. delivered with Eutelsat- & U.S.-spy-satellites reconnaissance to drop bombs on alleged PKK-targets. Collateral damaged was
often a Kurdish kid ... . Hahahahahahahahahahahaha Aha :)[You are so naive].
Recall the fate of Che Guevara and his band of socialist rebels. If the PKK expect any protection by the USA they best change their name to 'Capitalist Tools for Kurdish Democracy'.
Firstly, Kurdistan is the safest 'part' of Iraq and and probably safer than most parts of the US and Europe (only a handful of suicide attacks and country to popular belief violent crime rate is just about 0).
While in my experience of the region, a lot of Kurds disagree with the PKK, they are still Kurds and so will stick with them. Turkey needs to learn you have to live with the monsters you make, the current Iraqi government would help get rid of the PKK, but this heavy handedness will create a Hamas scale problem for Turkey, and Turkey is not a Israel scale nation to be able to handle it.
While there are various claims to the number of fatalities footage ( on various Kurdish News Channels) of Turkish dead bodies has been released by the PKK confirming a number of dead far in-advance( 26 compared to 18) of what the Turks disclosed, since then Turkey as beefed up it's claims of PKK dead :) with the lose of a $20mill helicopter I think they are on the back foot.
I'd like to remind you that the PKK collects bodies of the dead only to blow Turkish lies out of the water every so often, they are always returned.
I hope Turkey fights the clean fight and ends this quickly.
page: 1
SteveFeb 26th, 2008 - 21:30:19
We had to invade Irak and kill Sadam, becouse he killed so many Kurds and used Chemical warfair, and now we allow the Turks just to go in and kill so many Kurds as they can....
That's hardcore Politics, i feel so sorry for this people, to bad they dont have any oil in that instance would be other alternatives nesessary. They would be protectet like the Kouwaitis!!!! Same.
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