Turkey:Turkish helicopters and fighter jets pounded Kurdish rebel positions yesterday as diplomatic efforts got off to a rocky start in Ankara to avert a major offensive against the guerrillas based in northern Iraq.
Turkey described as unsatisfactory a series of proposals offered by a high-level Iraqi delegation to Ankara to prevent a major military operation against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, a senior Turkish diplomat said.
Ankara had given Iraq a list of members of the outlawed PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) in northern Iraq and demanded that Baghdad hand over all separatist rebels there.
"Everyone there is guilty. They are criminals at least for being a member of a terrorist organisation," deputy prime minister Cemil Cicek said, referring to the PKK. "We want all of them to be handed over."
Mr Cicek, who oversees Turkey's counter-terrorism efforts, was speaking in a televised interview as Iraqi and US officials met Turkish officials in Ankara in a bid to stop Turkey launching an incursion into northern Iraq.
Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops on the frontier before a possible cross-border operation against about 3,000 PKK guerrillas.
The state-run Anatolian news agency said Turkish helicopters fired on PKK positions discovered by reconnaissance missions along the mountainous border and inside Turkey.
Mr Cicek confirmed Turkish air strikes inside Iraqi territory but it was not clear whether he was referring to raids conducted yesterday or earlier ones reported by Iraqi Kurdish officials and security sources.
The PKK 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 conflict.
Yesterday's Iraqi-Turkish talks come ahead of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Ankara on November 2nd. Turkish diplomats say a decision on whether to launch a major operation will not be made until Mr Erdogan meets President Bush in Washington on November 5th.
Meanwhile the US congressional sponsors of an Armenian genocide resolution abruptly put off a vote on the measure on Thursday, thus defusing a mounting confrontation with Turkey.
- (Reuters)