Turkey military hits Kurdish rebel targets in Iraq
The Turkish military says it has carried out strikes against Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq.
The raids by Turkish warplanes "effectively hit" targets
belonging to the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the armed
forces' website said.
The strikes come a day after more than 30 people died in violence in south-east Turkey.
Eight Turkish soldiers died in a PKK attack, and 26 rebels were killed in Turkish counterattacks, officials said.
There have previously been many military operations similar
to Wednesday's strikes in same area, but they have had little visible
impact on the PKK's campaign against the Turkish state, the BBC's
Jonathan Head in Istanbul reports.
Several thousand PKK rebels are believed to be based in hideouts in northern Iraq.
The number of clashes between the PKK and the Turkish armed
forces has risen in south-east Turkey over the past year, and the PKK
has in the past carried out bombings in other parts of the country.
Tough questions
Eight Turkish soldiers were killed and 16 wounded when Kurdish
fighters attacked army outposts in Hakkari province, near the border
with Iraq and Iran, early on Tuesday.
Armed forces commanders are now facing tough questions over
how yet another deadly attack costing the lives of several young
soldiers was allowed to happen despite sophisticated intelligence
equipment, our correspondent says.
Questions are being asked about how the attack in Hakkari province was allowed to happen
The military's performance was already under fire over a
botched operation last December, relying on aerial intelligence, in
which 34 young Kurdish men were bombed and killed, he adds.
They turned out to be ordinary villagers smuggling fuel, an
incident which has provoked strong criticism of the government's
handling of the Kurdish insurgency.
Mr Erdogan's government has taken an increasingly hard line towards the PKK.
Thousands of Kurdish civilians accused by the authorities of
supporting the movement have been arrested, and the army has been
authorised to engage insurgents.
At the same time, Mr Erdogan has sought to address some of
the Kurdish minority's grievances, recently telling parliament that
Kurdish-language lessons may be offered in schools.
Kurdish minorities constitute up to a fifth of Turkey's population and also live in Iraq, Iran and Syria.
The PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organisation by
the EU and the US, launched a guerrilla campaign in 1984 for an ethnic
homeland in the Kurdish heartland in the south-east of Turkey.
It has now dropped a claim for an independent Kurdish state
but says it is fighting for autonomy and the cultural rights of the
Kurdish people.
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