Kurds kill 24 Turkish troops, Ankara to hit back (Reuters)

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) ? Turkey launched air and ground assaults on Kurdish militants in Iraq on Wednesday, vowing to take "great revenge" after 24 Turkish soldiers were killed in one of the deadliest Kurdish attacks in decades.

Security officials said about 100 fighters from the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party, mounted simultaneous attacks on seven remote army outposts in Cukurca and Yuksekova districts of Hakkari province, on the rugged southeastern border with Iraq.

The PKK, which has bases in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, did not immediately claim responsibility. But the fighting, in which Turkey said it killed 15 Kurdish militants after the initial assault, threatened wider instability at a time of upheaval in nearby Syria and for U.S. forces in Iraq.

Turkish security sources said commandos pushed up to 8 km (5 miles) into Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish fighters and warplanes struck targets around a guerrilla camp on the Zap river in the autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan.

"No one should forget this. Those that inflict this pain on us will endure far greater pain," Turkish President Abdullah Gul told reporters in Istanbul.

"Those that think they will weaken our state with these attacks or think they will bring our state into line, they will see that the revenge for these attacks will be very great and they will endure it many times over."

Twenty-four soldiers were killed and 18 wounded in the attacks, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said at a televised news conference in which he said wide-ranging operations, including hot pursuit missions, had been launched.

Turkish media had earlier put the death toll at 26.

Erdogan canceled a foreign trip had been about to start and convened an emergency meeting with the interior and defense ministers, along with intelligence chiefs and top generals. The foreign minister also canceled a planned visit abroad.

TURKISH OFFENSIVE

Security officials in the region told Reuters that Turkish troops had killed 15 Kurdish militants in subsequent clashes. Cobra helicopter gunships struck some targets in the area, and there were some 500 troops on Iraqi soil, some of them ferried in by air.

The attack and Turkey's response could increase regional instability at a time when U.S. troops in Iraq are due to pull out by the end of this year and amid mounting violence in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad has launched a crackdown on protesters challenging his rule.

Tensions between Turkey and Iran also are on the rise over Turkey's decision to house a NATO anti-missile radar.

Ethnic Kurds live in an area that sprawls across the borders of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria.

Turkey, which has frequently accused Iraq of not doing enough to crack down on PKK bases, has launched air and ground operations across the border several times in the past.

The last major land incursion was in 2008, when it sent in 10,000 troops backed by air power. But speculation had been rife that a new cross-border offensive was on the cards.

Kurdish rebels seeking an independent Kurdish homeland took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have died in the conflict.

Considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK has since modified its demands to greater autonomy and more rights for Kurds, who account for up to 15 million of Turkey's 74 million people.

NEGOTIATIONS

The attacks came after the jailed leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, had said that a resumption of peace talks depended on Turkey's attitude. Ocalan sent a message though his brother after a meeting in his cell on a prison island south of Istanbul, the PKK said in a statement on Tuesday.

"At this stage, the key is in the hands of state authorities, not ours. Negotiations will continue and everything could change in the coming process if they open the door," Ocalan said in his first message in months.

Erdogan's AK Party government has passed cultural and political reforms favouring ethnic Kurds and aimed at ending a violence fed by Kurdish grievances. Breaking a long-held taboo, Erdogan's government also held secret talks with Ocalan.

But following escalating violence in which PKK rebels have killed more than 50 Turkish security personnel since July, the government has taken a harder line.

In the past week, Turkish media have carried reports that Iran had captured the second in command of the PKK, Murat Karayilan, only to release him after Turkish airstrikes on the base where the militant commander had been operating from.

Iran has also been battling Kurdish militants on its border with Iraq, and Kurds in Syria, which had harbored Ocalan until 1998 when Turkey threatened Damascus with war, hold long-standing grievances against Assad.

(Additional reporting by Simon Cameron-Moore, Daren Butler and Jonanthon Burch; Writing by Ibon Villelabeita; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111019/wl_nm/us_turkey_kurds

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