Turkish troops entered northern Iraq early yesterday to flush out separatist Kurdish rebels, said Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga security force.
The operation is the first reported ground incursion by the Turkish military inside Iraq since tension between Ankara and Baghdad erupted over the Kurdish rebel issue in October.
"The area they entered is a deserted area and there is no Iraqi force or peshmerga deployed there. We do not know how many Turkish troops" crossed the border into Iraq, Yawar said.
A Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader also confirmed the operation by Turkish forces.
"Turkish infantry backed by aircraft entered the Iraqi borders in Khawakurt [on the Iraq-Turkey-Iran border] at 4am," he said on condition of anonymity.
A local Kurdish television channel called Kurdistan, belonging to regional President Massud Barzani's party, said that the Turkish soldiers had penetrated several kilometers inside Iraq from an area called Seed Qan.
It said the troops had reached the villages of Khaya Rash, Bunwaq, Janarouq and Kelirosh.
"The troops are now based there," the TV station said.
The ground operation comes after Turkish planes bombed several villages along the Iraq-Turkey border on Sunday to target rebel hideouts in the region.
Residents said schools and bridges were destroyed in the foothills of the Qandil mountains along the border where the bombing took place.
Turkish military officials in Ankara contacted by Agence France-Presse could not confirm that troops had crossed the border yesterday.
The mass-circulation Hurriyet newspaper said on its Web site that the troops could be commando units aiming to block the escape routes of PKK militants fleeing their camps after Sunday's air raids.
Tension between Iraq and Turkey has been high since Oct. 21 when the PKK ambushed a Turkish military patrol, killing 12 soldiers.
Since then Ankara has been threatening to launch a military incursion into Iraq to flush out PKK fighters hiding out in the mountainous north. But lobbying by the US and appeals by Baghdad stopped them from staging a full-fledged incursion.
The Turkish parliament has also given its formal approval for the Turkish military to cross the border into northern Iraq.
The PKK has been fighting for self-rule in southeastern Turkey since 1984, and more than 37,000 people have been killed on both sides since the conflict broke out.
Sunday's air strikes were strongly condemned by Baghdad, which called it a "cruel attack" on Iraqi sovereignty.
The PKK has vowed to retaliate against Turkish targets.
"Our people have every right to defend themselves and to retaliate," the rebel group said in a statement carried by the Firat news agency.
The EU and the UN have expressed concern over Turkish military action inside Iraq.
On Sunday, Ankara's most senior general, Yasar Buyukanit, said Turkey had received tacit US consent for the operation after Washington provided intelligence and opening up northern Iraqi airspace.
The US State Department declined to confirm or deny what help might have been given to Turkey, saying only that the strikes were "in keeping with" past air raids in northern Iraq.
"That said, we want to make sure that the actions that are taken are done in an appropriate way, that hit only those targets that are PKK and avoid civilian casualties," US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS