Turkey Seeks Support For Attack On Kurds

Turkey’s prime minister launched a weeklong campaign Monday to win American support for her army’s invasion of northern Iraq, but she offered no date for a full withdrawal.

Turkey sent 35,000 troops into northern Iraq last month to try to wipe out camps used for hitand-run attacks by Kurdish rebels from the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The zone in northern Iraq is part of an area controlled by Iraqi Kurds and patrolled by U.S.-led allied warplanes.

“We have a job to do, and we are doing it as fast as we can,” Prime Minister Tansu Ciller said after a speech. “We will not withdraw until the mission is accomplished.”

Ciller, in the first public appearance of her trip to the United States, said troops have all but destroyed the rebels’ operations but still have to seize caches of weapons and ammunition hidden in caves before the rebels fled.

“The operation is up in the mountains,” she said. “We want our soldiers to be back home as soon as possible. But it takes time to search the caves.”

Ciller is scheduled to discuss the operation with President Clinton on Wednesday and attend a festival in Houston and meet with former President Bush before returning home Sunday.