Rice: U.S. concerned about Turkey’s military action in Iraq

By Xinhua

Baghdad : U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday that Washington is concerned about Turkey’s activities that would cause destabilization in northern Iraq after Turkey launched two offensives against rebel troops this week.


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Rice, who arrived in Iraq Tuesday on a surprise visit, told a press conference that the U.S., Turkey and Iraq “share common interest of stopping the activity of PKK “which threatens stability in northern Iraqi and resulted in deaths in Turkey.

She said the U.S. holds a constant stand that there should be “an overall comprehensive approach to the problem,” and “no one should do anything that threatens to destabilize the north.”

“We have made clear to the Turkish government we continue to be concerned about anything that would lead to innocent civilian casualties or the destabilization of the north,” she said.

“We believe any unilateral actions to destabilize the situation will harm Iraqi interests and Turkey’s interests,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the same press conference.

Turkish troops entered the Iraqi territories in the northern Kurdish autonomous region early on Tuesday, targeting Kurdish rebels, a spokesman from the Kurdish border guards said.

“About 100 Turkish troops carrying light weapons entered the mountainous Bradrak area near the border,” the spokesman told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

There were no reports of clashes in the area, he said, adding that he expected that Turkish troops received intelligence reports about the presence of separatist Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters. Overnight, the Turkish artillery shelled two villages near the border in Duhuk province bordering Turkey, causing material casualties, the source added.

On Sunday, the Turkish warplanes carried out air strikes at some villages near the border in the Qandil mountains, killing a woman and wounding six people, according to a Kurdish security source.

A statement from the Turkish General Staff posted on its Web site said the Turkish warplanes bombed positions of PKK rebels in northern Iraq. The Turkish military has launched several cross-border attacks recently in a bid to fight separatist PKK rebels, who use northern Iraq as a launch pad for attacks against Turkey.

Security operations are underway in southeastern and eastern Turkey as 100,000 Turkish troops have massed along Turkish-Iraqi borders in preparations for a possible cross-border operation to crush about 3,000-strong PKK rebels.

The PKK, listed by the United States 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 over-two-decade conflict.

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