Turkish Planes Bomb Kurdish Rebels Along Iraqi Border

BAGHDAD, Oct. 24 -- The Turkish military has ramped up military operations along the southern border with Iraq, with aircraft reportedly bombarding the mountainous terrain on Wednesday, part of a growing confrontation that threatens to open a new northern front in the Iraq war.

While intense diplomatic efforts continued to prevent large-scale violence, Turkish military helicopters and warplanes attacked mountain paths used by Kurdish rebels to travel between Iraq and Turkey, the Turkish state-run Anatolian News Agency reported.

The Turkish operations were taking place in four predominantly Kurdish provinces of eastern Turkey and "in the border area with Iraq," the news agency said. An Associated Press cameraman saw helicopters and several F-16 warplanes take off from a Turkish air base in southeastern city of Diyarbakir, the news agency reported.

There were conflicting reports about exactly when and where the Turkish military carried out operations. Residents in northern Iraq described bombings Wednesday in the Mergasur area on the Turkish side of the border, and said artillery shells crashed down a day earlier near several villages inside Iraq. Much of the borderlands are sparsely populated, accessible only by narrow dirt roads, making it difficult to confirm the extent of the violence in the area.

The reported bombing came amid pleas by U.S. and Iraqi officials that Turkey refrain from a major cross-border incursion to combat guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK, a Kurdish group based in Turkey that seeks to create a Kurdish state.

"We are concerned about the continuing skirmishes that are happening up there and the terrorist attacks that are being lodged by the P.K.K. against the Turks," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, who added: "We continue to urge both sides to exercise restraint."

A spokesman for the PKK, Abdul Rahman al-Chaderchi, said Turkish planes did fly into Iraq but denied there was bombing in the Mergasur area. A senior official in the Kurdistan Regional Government, a semi-autonomous body that administers three northern Iraqi provinces, also said the area was not attacked by Turkish planes. Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranked American commander in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad he could not confirm reports of Turkish aircraft crossing into Iraqi airspace. "I cannot verify it," he said.

Turkey's parliament has passed a resolution approving a military offensive into Iraq to pursue the guerrilla fighters who live along both sides of the border and are accused of killing dozens of Turkish citizens in recent weeks. The prospects for such an invasion seemed to gain momentum after PKK fighters killed at least 12 Turkish soldiers in an ambush on Sunday. The PKK also claims to have captured eight Turkish soldiers, and video footage of the captives were broadcast on Iraqi and Turkish television stations.

Residents of northern Iraq say both Turkey and Iran have shelled areas within northern Iraq sporadically for years. Turkey's military also has staged several raids into Iraq in the past under what it says is the right of "hot pursuit" against the rebels.

On Wednesday, after an hours-long emergency meeting of Turkey's National Security Council, Turkish leaders moved closer to possible economic sanctions against the semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, which Turkey accuses of harboring the rebels. The security council members recommended unspecified economic measures against those entities that "directly or indirectly support the separatist terrorist organization in the region," a council statement said.

Turkey is one of the leading trade partners for northern Iraq, one of the few regions of the country to enjoy relative peace and prosperity since the U.S. invasion. Turkish construction firms are responsible for 90 percent of reconstruction projects in the Iraqi Kurdish north, officials there estimate, and Turkish companies are taking part in many private projects as well in the Iraqi north's post-invasion building boom.

Wednesday's statement by the Turkish security council did not name northern Iraq. But Prime Minister Tayip Erdogan mentioned the possibility of sanctions against the Iraqi north on Tuesday. Officials of his governing party have said measures could include cutting electricity to northern Iraq, and restricting traffic through the countries' border crossings.

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States intends to activate the trilateral commission -- Turkey, Iraq and the United States -- to prevent future cross-border attacks. Rice acknowledged the difficulties in containing the PKK amid the rugged mountains, but said "that isn't an excuse."

"The Iraqis have to deal seriously with this and so do we," Rice told members of the House Foreign Relations Committee. "And we've tried to reassure the Turks that we will do what we can to prevent that kind of attack again."

Knickmeyer reported from Cairo. Special correspondents Dlovan Brwari in Dahouk and Naseer Nouri in Baghdad contributed to this report.