UPDATED ON:
Sunday, December 23, 2007
10:33 Mecca time, 07:33 GMT
News Middle East
Turkish jets 'bomb PKK bases'
Air strikes by Turkish planes earlier this
month killed one woman [EPA]
 

Turkish aircraft have launched fresh attacks on Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq, the Turkish military says.
 
The military carried out the raid between 1pm and 2pm local time (1125-1200 GMT), following up with artillery fire, it said in a statement on its website.
The army did not say how deep into Iraqi territory the jets flew, or which areas were shelled.
 
Overnight on Tuesday, about 300 Turkish soldiers crossed over into northern Iraq in an operation targeting PKK fighters.
Earlier this month, Iraq accused Turkish forces of killing a woman during an air attack.
 
There were no reports of casualties in the incident, which Iraqi Kurdish security sources said occurred in al-Amadiyah area of northern Iraq.
 
"The aerial bombardment didn't result in any people killed because the area is almost deserted because of fear of aerial and mortar attacks from the Turkish side," Jabbar Yawer, spokesman for Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga security forces, was quoted by Reuters as saying.
 
The Turkish army's statement said it would continue military operations on both sides of the Turkish-Iraqi border against the PKK "no matter how the conditions are".
 
Stability fears
 
Turkey has carried out intermittent air and artillery strikes and small-scale raids by ground forces across the Turkish-Iraqi border for the past three months.
 
Turkey says it has the right to attack PKK fighters who shelter in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq and mount attacks which they have killed dozens of Turkish troops in recent months.
 
Both the US and Iraq have called on Turkey to avoid a major operation in the region, fearing it could destabilise a relatively calm area of Iraq.
 
About 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK began its armed struggle for an independent homeland in 1984.
 
The US and European Union, like Turkey, classify the PKK as a "terrorist organisation".
 Source: Agencies
 
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