Gates Sees No Imminent Turkish Attack

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, listens to Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm., Michael G. Mullen, answering a question during their news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, Oct. 18, 2007. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari) (Haraz N. Ghanbari - AP)

"I told him that restraint should not be confused with weakness," Gates said. "I thought that a major cross-border operation would be contrary to Turkish interests as well as our own and that of Iraq. I told him we should work together on this, that we were very mindful of the PKK terrorists."

The key, Gates said, is getting better information about the location and movement of PKK militants.

"The first and foremost challenge we face _ as is so often the case with terrorism _ is actionable intelligence," Gates said. That is information upon which quick and effective military action can be taken.

"I told him that lacking actionable intelligence, for them to send a large force across the border without any specific targets was likely to lead to a lot of collateral damage," Gates said, referring to civilian casualties.

Gates also told his Turkish counterpart that a major incursion into northern Iraq would hurt the Bush administration's efforts to stave off a positive vote in Congress on a resolution that would declare the World War I-era killings of Armenians a genocide. Armenian advocates contend the Armenians died in an organized genocide. The Turks say the Armenians were victims of widespread chaos and governmental breakdown as the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire collapsed in the years before Turkey was born in 1923.

Senior military officials in Washington have said in recent days that the PKK problem is a secondary priority at a stage in the Iraq war where U.S. troops are preoccupied with the insurgents and terrorists who are seeking to destroy the U.S.-backed Baghdad government.

In his remarks to reporters, Vecdi said he told Gates that Turkey expects the U.S. to do more to constrain the PKK in Iraq, although he would not spell that out in detail.

"We'd like to have something tangible" from the Americans, he said. "We expect this. Any kind of tangible actions."

Asked what Turkey's military leaders were preparing for, Gonul replied: "They are planning to cross (the) border."