Turkey to talk with Iraqi autonomous region over PKK (Roundup)

Oct 10, 2008, 17:48 GMT

Ankara - Turkey is set to enter into direct talks with the government of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region over attacks by the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), according to media reports Friday.

The move, reported by the CNN-Turk broadcaster citing government sources in Ankara, would mark a change of course by Turkey, which has until now refused contacts with the Iraqi Kurdish officials.

Turkey has previously accused Iraqi Kurdish authorities of tolerating the PKK.

On Thursday night Turkish war planes backed by artillery conducted attacks on a large group of Kurdish separatists inside northern Iraq, the Turkish military announced earlier Friday.

A Turkish General Staff spokesman said the PKK were attempting to cross into Turkey where they planned to carry out attacks on Turkish targets. A large number of the PKK were killed in Thursday night's bombardments, the spokesman said.

The attacks come almost a week after a PKK attack on a military border post left 17 soldiers and 23 PKK separatists dead.

The PKK uses mountainous northern Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks inside Turkey.

Ankara blames the separatist group for the deaths of more than 35,000 people since the early 1980s when the PKK began its fight for independence or autonomy for the mainly Kurdish-populated south-east of Turkey.

On Wednesday the Turkish parliament extended by one year a mandate that allows the Turkish military to launch attacks on PKK positions in Iraq.

The PKK is considered by the United States and the European Union to be a terrorist group.