ANKARA - Turkish warplanes bombed PKK targets in northern Iraq on Tuesday in the latest in a series of cross border air strikes, Turkey's army said.
"Intensive" strikes targeted Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) positions in the regions of Zap-Sivi, Avasin-Basyan and Hakurk, the general staff said in a statement on it website.
"The aircraft returned safely to base after successfully completing their mission," it said, adding that "maximum care" was taken to avoid civilian casualties. It gave no toll.
It was the fourth air strike against PKK targets in northern Iraq the Turkish military has confirmed since December 16, in addition to a cross-border ground operation to stop a group of militants seeking to infiltrate Turkey.
Iraqi Kurds, who run northern Iraq, reported two other air operations in December that Ankara did not confirm.
Turkey has massed up to 100,000 soldiers near the Iraqi border, and in October, the Turkish parliament gave a one-year authorisation for cross-border military action against the PKK.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday he could not predict when the offensive against PKK terrorists in Iraq would end.
"We hope that this fight against terrorism will end soon but we don't know how much longer it will last," Erdogan told journalists in Madrid, where he met with Spanish counterpart Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Turkey's parliament voted overwhelmingly to authorise the military to send troops into northern Iraq to confront PKK terrorists. The authorisation is valid until October 2008 and Erdogan said if the fighting is not over by then, "we will seek approval for the following year."
The air raids are conducted with intelligence from the United States.
At least 150 PKK terrorists have been killed and more than 200 terrorists positions destroyed so far, including command and training bases, ammunition dumps and anti-aircraft posts, according to the army.
Ankara says an estimated 4,000 PKK terrorists take refuge in northern Iraq, where they are tolerated by the local Kurdish administration as they use camps there as a springboard for attacks inside Turkey.
The United States, at first reluctant to back Turkish military action in Iraq, has agreed to supply its NATO ally with intelligence on PKK movements for limited cross-border strikes.
The Pentagon said last month that a coordination centre was set up in Ankara where Turkish and US military officials share intelligence.
Washington is eager to fend off a large cross-border operation by the Turkish military that might destabilise the relatively peaceful northern part of Iraq.
The PKK has waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.
A suspected PKK terrorists is suspected of being behind a car bomb in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on January 3 which killed five teenagers and an adult and wounding 70 others.
su/sf/ag
01/15/2008 13:46 GMT