BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes targeting Kurdish rebels bombed areas in northern Iraq on Sunday for the second day in a row but caused no casualties, an Iraqi Kurdish official said.
By Sherko Raouf
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes targeting Kurdish rebels bombed areas in northern Iraq on Sunday for the second day in a row but caused no casualties, an Iraqi Kurdish official said.
Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish security forces, said the airstrikes in a deserted mountainous area in northern Iraq started at 3:00 p.m. (7:00 a.m. EST) and lasted for more than three hours. He said the only damage was to farmland.
There was no immediate comment from the Turkish military, which said on Saturday it planned to continue its operations against separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas inside Turkey and across the border in northern Iraq.
!ADVERTISEMENT!Turkey says it has the right to use force to combat the PKK, which uses the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq as a launchpad to mount attacks in which they have killed dozens of Turkish troops in recent months.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan did not confirm or deny a Turkish raid on Sunday.
But he defended the country's right to use military force to attack the PKK across the border.
"We are using our rights based on international law ... We only have determination and that determination will continue as planned," Erdogan told the state-run Anatolian news agency.
The United States, which lists the PKK as a terrorist group, says it shares common interests with Turkey in stopping PKK activities in Iraq but fears a further escalation in tension could destabilize Iraq's more stable north and the region.
"We all have a pretty substantial interest in stability inside Iraq," U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker told reporters on Sunday, before the airstrikes were reported.
"I think none of us ... wants to see the operations persist in a manner that can threaten stability inside Iraq."
Turkey has massed 100,000 troops on the border with Iraq and vowed to crush the PKK, but it has so far held back from a full-scale invasion. Instead it has launched limited ground incursions and airstrikes against suspected PKK targets.
Turkish warplanes staged airstrikes on Saturday but caused no casualties, Iraqi officials said.
NATO-member Turkey has stepped up its offensive against the PKK guerrillas in northern Iraq over the past week, launching two offensives, one involving 50 fighter jets on December 16 and the other involving several hundred ground troops two days later.
The Turkish military said hundreds of PKK guerrillas were eliminated in the recent operations.
Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people since it began an armed struggle for a separate Kurdish homeland in 1984. Turkey says 3,000 PKK fighters are based in camps in northern Iraq.
(Additional reporting by Peter Graff in Baghdad and Thomas Grove in Istanbul, writing by Alaa Shahine; Editing by Giles Elgood)
