CIZRE, Turkey—Turkish warplanes and troops attacked Kurdish rebels inside Iraq this week, security sources said on Wednesday, but Ankara wants to hold back from any major incursion for now to give diplomacy a chance.
Turkey moved more troops to the mountainous Iraqi border, keeping up pressure on Baghdad to honour promises to crack down on an estimated 3,000 rebels of Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who use northern Iraq as a base.
Security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a series of sorties between Sunday and Tuesday evening in which Turkish warplanes flew 20 km (12 miles) into Iraq and some 300 ground troops advanced about 10 km (6 miles).
"Further 'hot pursuit' raids into northern Iraq can be expected, though none have taken place so far today (Wednesday)," a military official told Reuters.
State-run Anatolian news agency said Turkish warplanes and helicopters had bombarded PKK positions in southeast Turkey on Wednesday.
The sorties into Iraq killed 34 PKK rebels and all the Turkish troops involved in the operations were now back in Turkey, the official said.
But Abdul Rahman Jaderji, a PKK spokesman in northern Iraq, told Reuters there had been no direct fighting between the two sides since clashes on Sunday in which 12 Turkish soldiers died.
He said Turkish troops had been shelling areas of northern Iraq, but little new shelling had been reported on Wednesday.
Baghdad has pledged to act against the rebels. A Turkish official on Wednesday quoted Iraqi President Jalal Talabani as saying Iraq might hand over PKK militants to Turkey, but Talabani denied this.
"We have said many times that the PKK leadership does not exist in Kurdish cities but are living with thousands of their fighters in the Qandil mountains, so it is not possible for us to arrest and hand them over to Turkey," he said in a statement.
The lira currency firmed to 1.2100 against the dollar on the back of Talabani's reported comments.
The Turkish official described a planned visit by an Iraqi delegation to Ankara on Thursday as a "final chance" for diplomacy. At Turkey's request, the team will be headed by Iraqi Defence Minister General Abdel Qader Jassim. It will also include Iraqi National Security Minister Shirwan al Waeli.
'Restraint'
Washington and Baghdad fear a major Turkish incursion into northern Iraq could destabilise the whole region. But Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government is under heavy public pressure to take tough action, especially since Sunday's deaths.
"If I look at the Turkish government as it has acted up till now I think the Turkish government is showing restraint -- remarkable restraint under present circumstances," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters at a meeting of the alliance's defence ministers.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday she had told Erdogan on Sunday that she took the situation "extremely seriously".
"Iraq should not be a place where terrorism can hurt Turkey," she said. "We have a list of things that we believe, if they are undertaken, will help to deal with this situation," she added, citing Iraq's pledge to close PKK offices there.
Ankara is sceptical about Baghdad's ability to crack down on the PKK in northern Iraq, a mainly Kurdish region where the central government has little clout. The publication of photographs said to show eight Turkish soldiers captured by the PKK has added to pressure on Ankara to act.
U.S. troops are largely absent from northern Iraq.
The PKK's Jaderji said the eight soldiers were in good health but no decision had been made on whether to release them.
Troops on Border
Turkey, which has NATO's second biggest army, has deployed as many as 100,000 troops, backed by tanks, heavy artillery, F-16 fighter jets and helicopter gunships, along the mountainous border in preparation for a possible large-scale strike.
"We are reinforcing our troops near the border at Silopi and Uludere with men drawn from other parts of the country," a military source told Reuters in southeast Turkey on Wednesday.
Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the group launched its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.
Turkey's National Security Council, comprising political leaders and army top brass, said it would recommend that the government take economic measures against groups which aid the PKK in an apparent warning to the northern Iraqi administration over what Ankara feels is its failure to tackle the rebels.
Northern Iraq depends heavily on Turkey for power, water and many food supplies. Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani has infuriated Turkey by refusing to act against the PKK. He has said his peshmerga fighters will resist any Turkish incursion.
Feeds