Turkish army chief takes aim at Kurds

Too little too late, I say. Have a read of the article below from the Age Newspaper, for all these years the Republic of Turkey has been led up the garden path to E.U. membership and therefore has lost way too much in many terms. First and foremost in Turkish lives and property. While the US and others around the world can use the concept of self defence to use deadly force on terrorists and other entities that are a real and imminent risk to their national security Turkey has shown way too much restraint, in fact 40, thousand dead people or there abouts to much. The time has well and truly come to forget about the EU, look towards the East for future prosperity and finish the PKK issue once and for all.

Cheers

The Age April 12, 2007 - 11:44PM

The head of Turkey's powerful military General Staff called for a military operation in northern Iraq to quash Turkish Kurdish rebels hiding there. "From the military point of view, a (military) operation in northern Iraq must be made," General Yasar Buyukanit told a rare news conference, adding that a political decision from the government was first required to authorise such a step.

Turkey has repeatedly urged the Baghdad government and US occupying forces in Iraq to crack down on an estimated 4,000 rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who use northern Iraq as a springboard to attack targets inside Turkey. Ankara has said it reserves the right under international law to send troops into northern Iraq to tackle the rebels if Iraq and Washington continue to disregard its calls for action.

Turkey has been especially incensed in recent days by Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani's comments that Iraqi Kurds would interfere in Turkey's mainly Kurdish cities if Ankara interfered in northern Iraq. Buyukanit told the same news conference the military had received intelligence that Kurdish guerrillas would step up their activities in Turkey from May.
He said 10 members of the armed forces had been killed in clashes with the rebels in recent days during a major military offensive in southeast Turkey. Some 29 PKK militants have been killed in the same period, he added.

Turkish authorities fear increased attacks by the PKK on military and civilian targets could harm the country's lucrative tourist industry as the summer season looms.More than 30,000 people have been killed since the PKK launched its armed struggle for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984. The United States and the European Union, like Turkey, classify the PKK as a "terrorist organisation".