Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan warned yesterday that Turkey could launch an attack on Kurdish militants in northern Iraq on the heels of a similar threat by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday after diplomatic talks with Iraq failed.
"The moment an operation is needed, we will take that step," Erdogan told a flag-waving crowd in Izmit. "We don't need to ask anyone's permission."
Turkish-Iraqi talks collapsed late on Friday after Ankara rejected proposals by Iraqi Defense Minister General Abdel Qader Jassim for tackling Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq as insufficient. The Iraqi delegation left on Saturday.
After talks with his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, Babacan said that Ankara had ruled out no option in its fight against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels who have carried out a string of attacks in eastern Turkey.
"We have different instruments. We can use diplomacy or we can resort to military means," Babacan said in Tehran. "All of these are on the table."
"The Turkish people have lost their patience ... We are asking all our friends to support us in this endeavor, our fight against terror," he said.
However Mottaki gave a highly equivocal answer to a question over whether Iran would support a Turkish military strike on northern Iraq against the Kurdish militants.
"I think that we will be able to overcome these small grouplets," he said.
"There are various ways of going about this. We hope our cooperation will allow us to solve this," he said.
The Iraqi authorities also said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad agreed with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that that crisis could still be solved by diplomacy.
"Both leaders agreed the activities of the PKK were damaging the interests of Iraq, Turkey and Iran but stressed that military action is not the only option to deal with it," Maliki's office quoted the leaders as saying.
Iran has in recent weeks been echoing Turkey's frustration over the failure of the authorities in northern Iraq to crack down on Kurdish rebels.
The PKK-linked militant Kurdish group Party of Free Life of Kurdistan has been behind a string of deadly attacks on security forces in northwestern Iran in recent months.
Iran's Kordestan, Kermanshah and West Azarbaijan provinces, which border northern Iraq, have substantial Kurdish populations.
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
People can preregister to receive their NT$10,000 (US$325) cash distributed from the central government on Nov. 5 after President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday signed the Special Budget for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience, the Executive Yuan told a news conference last night. The special budget, passed by the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week with a cash handout budget of NT$236 billion, was officially submitted to the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon. People can register through the official Web site at https://10000.gov.tw to have the funds deposited into their bank accounts, withdraw the funds at automated teller
CONCESSION: A Shin Kong official said that the firm was ‘willing to contribute’ to the nation, as the move would enable Nvidia Crop to build its headquarters in Taiwan Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) yesterday said it would relinquish land-use rights, or known as surface rights, for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), paving the way for Nvidia Corp to expand its office footprint in Taiwan. The insurer said it made the decision “in the interest of the nation’s greater good” and would not seek compensation from taxpayers for potential future losses, calling the move a gesture to resolve a months-long impasse among the insurer, the Taipei City Government and the US chip giant. “The decision was made on the condition that the Taipei City Government reimburses the related
RSS