Turkish attacks continue along border

BAGHDAD – The Turkish military said it continued attacks Thursday against Kurdish separatists in mountainous areas along the Turkish-Iraqi border, as officials of the two countries and the United States gathered to attempt to defuse the crisis.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated Thursday that his government does not have “to seek anyone’s permission” to launch cross-border operations into Iraq and criticized allies for refusing to do more to curb the activities of the separatists.

“The ball is in our court now, and we will have to do what is necessary on our own if those who have the responsibility do not take action,” Erdogan said in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, during a joint news conference with Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu.

Turkey has recently dispatched warplanes and helicopters to its southern border with Iraq and shelled the mountainous terrain in a growing effort to combat guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, who have killed more than 40 Turkish soldiers, police and civilians in the past month and claim to have taken eight soldiers hostage in an ambush earlier this week. Turkey has threatened to invade Iraq to pursue the rebels, but U.S. and Iraqi diplomats are working to prevent that.

An Iraqi delegation led by Defense Minister Abdul Qadir Muhammed Jassim arrived in Ankara, the Turkish capital, to meet with senior Turkish officials to discuss the increasing tension along the border.

The officials will conduct formal talks today.

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, called on the Iraqi government Thursday to do more to isolate the PKK inside its mountainous hideouts in northern Iraq. He said the Iraqi government needed to make clear it would not accept a terrorist organization attacking other countries from Iraq’s territory.

Crocker said U.S. officials would participate in the Ankara meetings.

He declined to speculate about the potential U.S. response to a Turkish invasion of Iraq. “Our efforts right now, with both the Turks and the Iraqis, is for that not to happen,” he said.