Turkish troops enter northern Iraq

By Xinhua

Mosul(Iraq) : Turkish troops entered the Iraqi territories in the northern Kurdish autonomous region early Tuesday despite an Iraqi protest against Sunday’s air raids in the region by Turkish planes.


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“About 100 Turkish troops carrying light weapons entered the mountainous Bradrak area near the border,” said a spokesman for the Kurdish border guards.

Overnight, the Turkish artillery shelled two villages near the border in Duhuk province bordering Turkey, causing material casualties, the source added.

The Turkish warplanes Sunday carried out air strikes at some villages near the border in the Qandil mountains, killing a woman and wounding six people.

Turkey’s military said the US had given the go-ahead for its attacks on Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq Sunday while Iraq lodged protest with Turkey for the attacks.

Turkish media quoted the country’s Armed Forces Chief of General Staff Yasar Buyukanit as saying US forces in Iraq had opened the airspace for Turkish fighter planes targeting the banned Kurdish Worker’s Party.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Deputy Foreign Minister Muhammad al-Haj Hamud had called in the Turkish ambassador to Iraq and handed in his government’s protest over the air strikes on populated Iraqi villages in Qalit Daza in Sulaymanyah province.

Iraq also called on Turkey to end the military operations saying it affected innocent people and could affect the friendly ties between both peoples and governments.

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 US 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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