Turkey intensifies military presence on Iraq border

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey has sent large contingents of soldiers, tanks and armored personnel carriers to reinforce its border with Iraq amid a heated debate over whether to stage a cross-border offensive to hit Kurdish rebel bases.



Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged the United States and Iraq to destroy bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq as the Turkish military deployed more tanks and soldiers on the border.



Images of military trucks rumbling along the remote border with Iraq's Kurdish zone and tanks being transferred on trains and trucks to reinforce an already formidable force there have dominated television screens and the front pages of several newspapers in the past few weeks.



The Turkish military has said it routinely reinforces the border with Iraq in the summer to prevent infiltration by the guerrillas.



"The PKK must be eliminated as a problem between Iraq and Turkey," Turkey's special envoy to Iraq, Oguz Celikkol, told CNN-Turk television today before visiting Iraq to discuss demands that Iraq and US forces crack down on the group.



Asked whether Turkey could take unilateral action, Celikkol said: "Our expectation is that this issue is resolved before it comes to that point."



Erdogan did not rule out a cross-border Turkish operation.



"The target is to achieve results. Our patience has run out. The necessary steps will be taken when needed," he said.



In the past, cross-border operations have yielded mixed results, with many guerrillas sheltering in hide-outs and emerging to fight again once the bulk of Turkish units withdrew from Iraq.



The Turkish military says up to 3,800 rebels are now based across the border in Iraq and that up to 2,300 operate inside Turkey.



Iraqi Kurdish groups who run the northern Iraq have threatened to resist a Turkish incursion. If U.S. forces take action they risk alienating Iraqi Kurds, the most pro-American group in the region. If they don't, they risk increased tensions - and possibly worse - with two powerful rivals, the IOL reports.