By Xinhuanet
Beijing : Kurd officials on Sunday described Turkey’s claims it had made a military incursion into northern Iraq and inflicted losses on rebel forces as baseless after the Turkish military said on Saturday it had launched an “intensive intervention” to hit the KurdistanWorkers Party (PKK) in Iraq’s mountainous north.
A Turkish military official said about 100 special forces troops had crossed into Iraq and that long-range artillery and up to six helicopters had bombed a PKK camp after spotting a group of 50-60 rebels 20 kilometers (12 miles) inside the border.
Jabbar Yawar, a spokesman for Kurdistan’s Peshmerga security forces said there had been no incursion or shelling by Turkish forces into northern Iraq. Yawar also said there were no casualties in the area.
U.S. military spokesman Major Winfield Danielson said in Baghdad that U.S. forces in Iraq were still checking but had so far not received any reports of an incursion by Turkey.
A PKK official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters in Sulaimaniya in northern Iraq that the Turkish military’s claims were “lies and false allegations.”
Ankara has massed up to 100,000 troops near the mountainous border with northern Iraq, backed by tanks, artillery and warplanes ahead of a long-awaited strike against Kurdish rebels who use bases in northern Iraq to launch attacks in Turkey.
On Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the cabinet had authorized the armed forces to conduct a cross-border operation.
Analysts say a major incursion does not appear imminent, arguing that many Kurdish rebels have moved into Iran and that weather conditions in northern Iraq are rapidly worsening, making a large-scale military strike difficult.