SELCAN HACAOGLU
ANKARA
Turkey has sent large contingents of soldiers, tanks and armoured personnel carriers to reinforce its border with Iraq amid a heated debate over whether to stage a cross-border offensive to hit Kurdish rebel bases.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday urged the US and Iraq to destroy bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq as the Turkish military deployed more tanks and soldiers on the border.
The images of military trucks rumbling along the remote border with Iraq's Kurdish zone and tanks being transferred on trains and trucks to reinforce an already formidable force there have dominated television screens and the front pages of newspapers in the past few weeks.
The Turkish military has said it routinely reinforces the border with Iraq in the summer to prevent infiltration by the guerrillas.
"The PKK must be eliminated as a problem between Iraq and Turkey," Turkey's special envoy to Iraq, Oguz Celikkol, said yesterday.
Asked whether Turkey could take unilateral action, Celikkol said: "Our expectation is that this issue is resolved before it comes to that point."
Erdogan did not rule out a cross-border Turkish operation.
"The target is to achieve results. Our patience has run out. The necessary steps will be taken when needed," he said.
Turkey's Foreign Ministry yesterday urged Iraq to take action. "What we want from the Iraqi government is to take necessary steps to stop the terrorists' activities by any means," Foreign Ministry spokesman Levent Bilmansaid.
In the past, cross-border operations have yielded mixed results, with many guerrillas sheltering in hideouts and emerging to fight again once the bulk of Turkish units withdrew from Iraq.
The Turkish military says up to 3800 rebels are now based across the border in Iraq and that up to 2300 operate inside Turkey.
Iraqi Kurdish groups who run the northern Iraq bases have threatened to resist a Turkish incursion. If US forces take action they risk alienating Iraqi Kurds, the most pro-American group in the region. If they don't, they risk increased tensions - and possibly worse - with two powerful rivals.
Last week, a suicide bomb blamed on the rebels killed six people in Ankara, and a bomb in a south-eastern area where guerrillas are active killed six Turkish soldiers. Another soldier died yesterday when he stepped on a mine, believed to have been planted by the guerrillas near the Iraqi border.
"All the explosives used by the PKK in Turkey are traced back to Iraq," Celikkol said.
Turkish troops say they have killed 10 guerrillas in the country's south-east since Monday.
Turkish forces have been battling Kurdish separatists in Turkey's south-east since the rebels took up arms in 1984. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people.
Meanwhile, Turkish authorities seized weapons hidden among construction mate- rials on a Syria-bound train from Iran after Kurdish guerrillas bombed and derailed the train, a prosecutor said yesterday.
The cargo was discovered when authorities checked containers on the train, which was attacked by separatist Kurdish guerrillas on May 25 near the town of Genc in south-eastern Bingol province.
The private Dogan news agency said the cargo included a rocket launch pad and 300 rockets as well as other weapons and ammunition.
Turkish authorities suspect Iran is using Turkey as a transit point to send arms to Lebanon's Hezbollah movement via Syria.-AP
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