By RIA Novosti
Ankara : The Turkish army has mounted a massive military operation against Kurdish separatists in the southeast of the country, local media reported Wednesday.
According to the Turkish Cihan news agency, the operation, involving about 50,000 troops, armoured vehicles and combat aircraft, is targeting Kurdish militants in 11 provinces in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq.
"Three F-16 Falcon fighter-bombers…have carried out bombing raids on militant positions of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq," the agency said.
Observers are not ruling out the possibility that the current operation will precede a full-scale invasion into northern Iraq, where up to 3,500 PKK separatists, poised to commit terrorist attacks in Turkey, are reportedly based.
Over 40,000 people have been killed in Turkey since 1984 when the PKK started its fight for an ethnic Kurdish state in the southeast of the country.
Its charismatic leader Abdullah Ocalan has been imprisoned since 1999 on charges of terrorism, narrowly escaping the death penalty because the EU, whose membership Turkey is seeking, has long lobbied against capital punishment.