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Turkish General Sees U.S. Ties at Risk
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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to ask parliament this week to authorize cross-border military operations against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) headquarters, training camps and other operational bases in northern Iraq. Officials expect the measure to win approval easily.
As part of escalating border tensions in recent days, the Turkish military fired a barrage of artillery shells into the northern Iraqi village of Zakhu late Saturday and Sunday morning, according to news service reports from the region. Villagers fled the attack, and no casualties were reported.
The Turkish Military General Staff reported on its Web site Sunday that PKK rebels fired rockets and long-range weapons at a Turkish police outpost in the border region Saturday and that military forces "responded to those unacceptable attacks with retaliation."
The statement added, "We will continue to retaliate such attacks in the future."
Thirty Turkish soldiers and civilians have been killed in a surge of PKK attacks near the Turkish border in the past two weeks. Although PKK attacks and Turkish counterattacks are common in the contentious border area, a firefight that killed 13 Turkish commandos last week was the single deadliest PKK attack against the Turkish military in 12 years.
Staff writer Zachary A. Goldfarb in Washington contributed to this report.
