Turkey's military say its warplanes and artillery units have attacked dozens of Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq.
A
military statement says 31 positions of the rebel Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) were successfully hit late Friday in northern Iraq's
Harkurk region. A PKK spokesman says the rebels suffered no casualties
in the offensive.
Turkish officials have been considering new
actions against Kurdish rebels following recent attacks on security
forces that killed 24 people, including 17 Turkish soldiers.
Turkey's
President Abdullah Gul said Saturday Turkey has been talking to Iraq's
Kurdish government about taking military action against the PKK, which
launches attacks on Turkey from bases in northern Iraq.
Meanwhile,
the governor of Istanbul, Muammer Guler, says police have captured a
suspected Kurdish female suicide bomber carrying about nine kilograms
of explosives. The arrest was made in a downtown district, Sisli.
In
other news, Iranian state media say members of an Iranian religious
militia killed four Kurdish separatists in a clash this week near the
Iraqi border.
The fighting between members of the Basij militia
and rebels with the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, or PEJAK, took
place late Tuesday in Kurdistan province in western Iran. Iran accuses
PEJAK of using bases in Iraq to launch attacks inside Iran. The
separatist rebel group has close ties to the PKK.
Turkish
lawmakers recently extended a mandate for the military to continue
operations in northern Iraq for another year. Turkey accuses Iraq of
not doing enough to stop PKK rebels based in Iraqi Kurdistan. Iraqi
officials deny the accusation.
The PKK has been fighting for
Kurdish autonomy in southeastern Turkey since 1984. The violence has
killed at least 37,000 people.
Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist group.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
