A senior Turkish army general said Thursday that the country was
in the process of implementing across-border operation against the
outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) based in northern Iraq,
private NTV reported.
"We are now in the process of implementing a cross-border
operation," which "will be a heavy blow to PKK camps in northern
Iraq," General Ilker Basbug, head of the land forces, was quoted as
saying.
No further details about the operation were immediately
available, but Basbug noted that the parliament has authorized the
cabinet on the operation.
Of course, when and how this mandate will be implemented is "a
completely separate issue," he added.
The general's remarks came one day after Ankara said the US had
begun to share intelligence on rebel targets in northern Iraq.
Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops near the border with Iraq
in preparation for a cross-border operation to crush the northern
Iraq-based 3,000-strong PKK rebels.
The PKK, listed by the US, the EU and Turkey as a terrorist
group, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating
an ethnic homeland in the southeast.
More than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict that
has lasted more than two decades.
(Xinhua News Agency November 16, 2007)
