TURKEY: Turkey flexes military might amid PKK clashes

Turks take to the streets to celebrate the 84th anniversary of the founding of the secular republic with grand military displays as helicopter gunships bomb Kurdish rebels in eastern Turkey. Helicopter gunships bombed Kurdish rebel positions in eastern Turkey on Monday (October 29) while the government flexed its military muscle with massive national day parades and flypasts in major cities. Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, along with high ranking officials, visited Ataturk's Mausoleum to commemorate the 84th anniversary of the founding of the secular nation. Accompanied by military officials, Gul placed a wreath at the tomb of Turkey's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. 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 crush some 3,000 guerrillas who use the region as a base. The White House said it was pressing Turkey and Iraq to continue talks aimed at averting a cross-border operation. Witnesses said they saw helicopters firing rockets at suspected Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) positions in the mountains in Turkey's border province of Sirnak on Monday. The operation was continuing after several hours. One soldier was killed during the operation in southeast Turkey on Monday, Turkish broadcasters reported. Another soldier was killed in Tunceli province, hundreds of km (miles) from the border, in an explosion triggered by a landmine, a favoured weapon of the outlawed PKK. On Sunday (October 28), army sources said 20 PKK guerrillas had been killed in the Tunceli campaign. Turkey has the second biggest armed forces in NATO. Turkish nationalist fervour has been rising since the deaths of the 12 soldiers, whose funerals last week turned into huge anti-PKK rallies that have greatly increased pressure on Erdogan's government to send troops into northern Iraq. Turkish officials say talks next Monday between Erdogan and President George W. Bush will be crucial in determining whether Turkey carries out its threats of a major cross-border offensive against an estimated 3,000 PKK rebels holed up in northern Iraq.

ITN Source | October 29, 2007

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