SIRNAK: Turkey escalated its opposition to a Kurdish independence referendum in northern Iraq on Tuesday, training tank guns and rocket launchers across the southern border and saying the break-up of its neighbours could lead to global conflict.

Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli said in Ankara next Monday’s vote posed a major risk and Turkey would take “every step” needed to thwart any similar steps in its mainly Kurdish southeast.

Iraqi Kurdish authorities have defied growing international pressure to call off the vote, which Iraq’s neighbours fear will fuel unrest among their own Kurdish populations.

“A change that will mean the violation of Iraq’s territorial integrity poses a major risk for Turkey,” Canikli said.

“The disruption of Syria and Iraq’s territorial integrity will ignite a bigger, global conflict with an unseen end.”

Turkish troops dug in on the southern border on Tuesday and turned their weapons towards Kurdish-run northern Iraq.

The military drill, launched without warning on Monday, is due to last until Sept 26, Turkish military sources said, a day after the planned referendum.

War planes kill three Kurdish militants

Turkish war planes struck Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq on Tuesday, killing three militants, the military said, as part of a widening campaign against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

In a statement, the military said the air strikes targeted the Zap region, the Turkish name for a river which flows across the Turkish-Iraqi border and is known as Zab in Iraq.

The air strike was the second on Tuesday and the third in the past two days since Turkish soldiers started a military drill along the Iraqi border.

The Turkish air force has frequently struck against PKK units in the mountains of northern Iraq.

The group is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and European Union.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2017