By Xinhua
Ankara : U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday that Turkey’s cross-border ground operation against the rebels of the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq should be short and focused.
Gates, who arrived in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Wednesday for an official visit, made the remarks after his meeting with his Turkish counterpart Vecdi Gonul.
He said that the “United States believes the current offensive should be as short and precisely targeted as possible.”
Turkish Armed Forces announced Wednesday that 77 PKK militants were killed on the sixth day of cross-border ground operation in the north of Iraq, which started last Thursday.
In a statement posted on its website Wednesday, the General Staff said that Tuesday’s clashes had brought the guerrilla death toll to 230 since the beginning of the cross-border operations.
Meanwhile, five Turkish soldiers and three village guards had been also killed in the operation, added the statement.
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 of the country. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the over-two-decade conflict.