TURKEY:Turkey will not send troops into northern Iraq against Kurdish separatists if the militants disarm, ruling AK Party members were quoted as saying yesterday, in an apparent change of tack aimed at ending the border crisis.
Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops near its border, backed up by tanks, artillery and warplanes, ahead of a possible major cross-border incursion to crush armed groups of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) hiding there.
A top general, Ilker Basbug, said late on Thursday that the army was already "in the process of implementing" a cross-border operation, but the region remained quiet yesterday, suggesting any offensive was still only in the preparatory stages.
Many commentators believe Turkey has no real intention of staging a major incursion, but generals and politicians are keen to give an impression that firm action is being taken. An opinion poll published yesterday showed some 81 per cent of Turks favoured a cross-border operation into Iraq against the PKK.
In a fresh challenge for Turkish democracy, prosecutors said yesterday they had opened a court case against the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) after its calls for autonomy for the southeast region, saying they undermined national unity.
The DTP backs more cultural and political rights for Turkey's large ethnic Kurdish population but is viewed by many Turks as a mouthpiece for the PKK, a charge it denies.
Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of almost 40,000 people since the group launched its armed insurgency in 1984. Like Turkey, the US and EU class the PKK as a terrorist organisation.
Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, said yesterday that some kind of Turkish military action was "now almost inevitable" but it need not necessarily harm bilateral relations.
"[ A cross-border operation] will not affect relations between Iraq and Turkey or between the Turks and the Kurds [ if limited in scope]," he said.