U.S. military started giving Turkey more intelligence on PKK rebels

PanARMENIAN.Net - The U.S. military has started giving more intelligence - "lots of intelligence" - to Turkey to help it against Kurdish rebels staging cross-border attacks from their hiding places in neighboring Iraq, the Defense Department said Wednesday.



Turkey has complained for months about what it has said is a lack of U.S. support against the rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known by its Kurdish acronym PKK. And Ankara has threatened a full-scale ground attack into northern Iraq if the U.S. and Iraqi officials don't do something about the rebels.



"We have given them more and more intelligence as a result of the recent concerns," said Defense Department Press Secretary Geoff Morrell.



"There has been an increased level of intelligence sharing as a result of this," he told Pentagon reporters Wednesday. He did not say specifically when the increase started.



Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested last week that air strikes or major ground assaults by U.S., Turkish, or other forces would not help much because not enough is known about where the rebels are at a given time.



At the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino said that when President George W. Bush meets on Monday with Turkey's Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan, the president will say that the United States wants the Iraqis and the Turks to be able to have continued dialogue about the PKK problem.



"We expect the Iraqis to step up and make sure that they are doing everything they can to eradicate the PKK," Perino said Wednesday.



"Turkey has a right to defend its people, it has a right to look for its soldiers, and we are asking Turkey, as well, to exercise restraint and to limit its exercises to the PKK," he said, The Associated Press reported.