Turkey Bombs Kurds in Iraq; 2 Sides Differ on Casualties

12/23/2007

By SEBNEM ARSU and STEPHEN FARRELL
NY Times
Published: December 23, 2007


ISTANBUL — In its third large cross-border attack into Iraq within a week, Turkey said Saturday that its warplanes had killed hundreds of separatist Kurdish rebels.

A statement from the military said that the air attack, which lasted less than half an hour, was followed by an artillery barrage on the same area from nearby units in Turkey. The military said that Kurdish P.K.K. rebels were based in the area, and that the government would provide video and audio details of the operation later in the week.

Officials with the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq said that Turkish planes had bombed for about two hours around Darkar and Barwari Balla, villages near the border in Dohuk Province. But the deputy minister for the Kurdish government’s security forces, Jabbar Yawer, said that no one had been wounded or killed because the bombing had hit deserted areas. A border official for the central Iraqi government, Brig. Hussain Tamr, also said there had been no casualties. It was impossible to independently verify either of the competing claims.

On Dec. 16, Turkey unleashed broad airstrikes on several areas along the border in Iraqi Kurdistan. Two days later, a few hundred Turkish troops briefly crossed the border in pursuit of rebels but withdrew them within hours, the army said.

The cross-border attacks have outraged the Iraqi government, which accused Turkey of violating its sovereignty. Ali Hadi Muhammad, a government adviser who is close to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said earlier this week: “We deplore the interference in our territory. The prime minister has already said that we want to solve this problem through peaceful negotiations and diplomatic means.”

The Iraqi government says that the airstrikes on the 16th killed four innocent people and displaced hundreds.

Turkey denied that there had been any civilian casualties or damage in the first strike. It insists that it has the right to take any actions necessary against P.K.K. rebels, who are based both in Turkey and Iraq have fought for years in hopes of creating an autonomous Kurdish region in eastern Turkey.

The United States has supported Turkey’s strikes at the P.K.K., which the State Department lists as a terrorist organization, and has said it would offer intelligence information to help in the operations. But American officials have tried to discourage large-scale attacks into Iraq, fearing that they could further weaken the Iraqi government.

In Baghdad, officials said that a suicide car bomber had struck at a joint Iraqi police and army checkpoint in Ghazaliya, a mixed area of west Baghdad, killing four people, including a soldier and three civilians.