TURKEY: Residents of Turkish capital Ankara step up pressure on leadership to crush Kurdish PKK rebels

Culminating national day celebrations across Turkey, thousands take to the streets of Ankara in a stark reminder to the government they are still awaiting military action against Kurdish rebels. Thousands marched through Turkey's capital on Monday (October 29) calling on the leadership to take military action against Kurdish rebels after a day of national day parades marking the country's founding. Some 8,000 residents of Ankara, waving Turkish flags and holding candles, marched through the streets, stepping up pressure on the government to conduct a cross-border offensive on rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) residing in northern Iraq. Earlier, in Ankara warplanes swooped, tanks rolled and troops marched past President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and senior generals in a display of military might designed to stress Turkish unity and resolve. Nationalist fervour has been rising, and the funerals last week of the 12 soldiers killed by the PKK turned into huge anti-PKK rallies that greatly increased the pressure on the government to send troops into northern Iraq. On the southeast border, helicopter gunships bombed Kurdish rebel positions. Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops, backed by tanks, artillery, warplanes and combat helicopters, along the Iraqi border in readiness for a possible large-scale incursion to hunt down 3,000 guerrillas who use the region as a base. As Turkey prepares for a cross-border offensive its military has also launched an extensive operation against suspected PKK positions in several provinces in the mainly Kurdish southeast. Washington and the Baghdad government have urged Ankara to refrain from major military action in mainly Kurdish northern Iraq, fearing this would destabilise the wider region.

ITN Source | October 30, 2007

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