December 19, 2007	Wednesday	Zilhaj 8, 1428

ARBIL (Iraq), Dec 18: Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq on Tuesday in the first ground incursion against Kurdish rebels, overshadowing a visit to Iraq by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul said the army was “doing what is necessary in the fight against terrorism,” while Rice said the United States, Iraq and Turkey shared a “common interest” in stopping rebel activities.

Annoyance over Washington’s perceived approval of the Turkish action created a diplomatic incident, with the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region reportedly refusing to meet Rice in Baghdad.

Iraq’s Kurdish regional administration initially said 300 Turkish soldiers advanced some three kilometres into northern Iraq before dawn, two days after warplanes bombed several villages along the border, targeting rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) bases.

Early Tuesday evening, the office of Kurdish regional President Massud Barzani said the troops “have started to withdraw back into Turkish territory.” It said around 500 Turkish soldiers entered northern Iraq and remained in remote areas along the Iraq-Turkey border.

“There were no clashes,” the statement said, referring to some media reports that the Turkish soldiers had clashed briefly with the peshmerga forces of the Iraqi Kurdish region.

As the reports of the incursion emerged, Rice arrived in Iraq on a surprise visit, landing in the northern oil city of Kirkuk.

It was later reported that Barzani was refusing to meet her because of the US position over Turkey sending soldiers into Iraq.

Barzani had warned Ankara about taking military action, saying the “blood of the people of Kurdistan is not cheap.” He also said Washington had a “moral duty” to protect his region from further Turkish strikes.

On Tuesday afternoon, Kurdish regional Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said “it was decided that Massud Barzani would go to Baghdad to take part in a meeting with Condoleezza Rice and other officials, but he will not go now as a sign of protest against the American position on the bombings by Turkey.

“It is unacceptable that the US, in charge of monitoring our airspace, authorised Turkey to bomb our villages,” he said.

On Sunday, Ankara’s most senior general, Yasar Buyukanit, said Turkey had received tacit US consent for the operation after Washington provided intelligence and opened up northern Iraqi airspace.

And Rice said in Baghdad that the PKK rebels were threatening “the stability in the north, which clearly has resulted in deaths in Turkey.”

Tension between Iraq and Turkey has been high since October 21 when the Iraq-based rebels ambushed a Turkish military patrol, killing 12 soldiers. Since then Ankara has been threatening to launch a military incursion to flush out PKK fighters hiding out in Iraq’s north. But lobbying by Washington and appeals by Baghdad stopped them from staging a full-fledged incursion.

Parliament in Ankara has also given its formal approval for the Turkish military to cross the border into northern Iraq.

Rice travelled to Kirkuk to back UN efforts to ease tensions among the city’s Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen communities in the face of longstanding Kurdish demands for it to be incorporated into their autonomous region.—AFP