Turkey pushes into Northern Iraq after PKK strikeOctober 20, 2011 - 18:50 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey's Armed Forces on Thursday, Oct 20 launched a broad land assault into Northern Iraq to attack bases of the outlawed Kurdish Worker's Party, or PKK, in a major escalation of a long-running conflict. Twenty-two battalions were involved in a "large scale" operation targeting five areas in Iraq and Turkey, a statement on the website of the general staff of the military said. A Turkish defense ministry official said the force amounted to some 9,000-10,000 troops. The cross-border operation followed one of the deadliest attacks the PKK has carried out in almost three decades of fighting, first for a separate Kurdish state and more recently for greater autonomy and language rights. The general staff statement confirmed that PKK attack early Wednesday on eight locations in Hakkari province, where Turkey's borders with Iraq and Iran meet, had left 24 soldiers dead and 18 wounded, four of them seriously, The Wall Street Journal reported. Top stories Authorities said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during Azerbaijan’s offensive. In 2023, the Azerbaijani government will increase the country’s defense budget by more than 1.1 billion manats ($650 million). The bill, published on Monday, is designed to "eliminate the shortcomings of an unreasonably broad interpretation of the key concept of "compatriot". The earthquake caused a temporary blackout, damaged many buildings and closed a number of rural roads. Partner news | Russia warns Armenia against “falling into West’s trap” Zakharova maintained, however, that anything that will benefit the people of Armenia can only be welcomed. CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. Ucom launches network modernization efforts in few regions of Armenia In particular, on March 28, the legacy Mobile Switching Subsystem will be replaced with a new one. |