Turkish troops shelled a border area in northern Iraq for a second day early yesterday in an attack on Kurdish rebels based there, a pro-Kurdish news agency reported. The report could not be confirmed immediately.
The leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, confirmed shelling by Turkish troops in Kurdish areas on Sunday but said there was no Turkish incursion.
Yesterday, the Belgium-based Firat news agency, citing local Iraqi Kurdish sources, said Turkish artillery again targeted an area close to the border town of Zakho. On Sunday, the agency said the troops shelled the Hakurk area, further east.
Turkish authorities, who have called the Firat agency a mouthpiece of Kurdistan Workers' Party, known by its Kurdish acronym PKK, were not immediately available to comment.
Kurdish guerrillas have long had camps in the Hakurk area, 15km from the Turkish border.
Turkish troops have occasionally launched brief raids in pursuit of guerrillas in northern Iraq, and have sometimes shelled suspected rebel positions across the border. Turkish authorities rarely acknowledge such military operations, which were more frequent before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Turkey's foreign minister told an EU meeting that Ankara has every right to take measures against Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq.
"I have told them that we have every right to take measures against terrorist activities directed at us from northern Iraq," Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told a news conference.
Turkey will deliver a report to the UN this week spelling out its concerns about Kurdish separatists in Iraq and reaffirming its legal right to take action against them, an official said yesterday.
The news comes as Turkey reinforces its troops along the border with Iraq and the army General Staff stresses its readiness for a cross-border operation to crush separatist rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known by its Kurdish acronym PKK.
"Diplomacy first," said yesterday's Sabah newspaper headline, saying the UN move prepared the legal and diplomatic ground for a possible military operation, which has already sparked alarm in the US, Turkey's NATO ally.
The Foreign Ministry official said Turkey's permanent UN representative, Baki Ilkin, would hold talks with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week.
"The terrorism incidents will be explained. A report will be presented concerning the explosives and weapons we have determined are coming [into Turkey] from northern Iraq," the official said.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,
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