Ankara - Turkey is set to enter into direct talks with the
government of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region over attacks by the
Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), according to media reports Friday.
The move, reported by the CNN-Turk broadcaster citing government
sources in Ankara, would mark a change of course by Turkey, which has
until now refused contacts with the Iraqi Kurdish officials.
Turkey has previously accused Iraqi Kurdish authorities of
tolerating the PKK.
On Thursday night Turkish war planes backed by artillery
conducted attacks on a large group of Kurdish separatists inside
northern Iraq, the Turkish military announced earlier Friday.
A Turkish General Staff spokesman said the PKK were attempting to
cross into Turkey where they planned to carry out attacks on Turkish
targets. A large number of the PKK were killed in Thursday night's
bombardments, the spokesman said.
The attacks come almost a week after a PKK attack on a military
border post left 17 soldiers and 23 PKK separatists dead.
The PKK uses mountainous northern Iraq as a base from which to
launch attacks inside Turkey.
Ankara blames the separatist group for the deaths of more than
35,000 people since the early 1980s when the PKK began its fight for
independence or autonomy for the mainly Kurdish-populated south-east
of Turkey.
On Wednesday the Turkish parliament extended by one year a mandate
that allows the Turkish military to launch attacks on PKK positions
in Iraq.
The PKK is considered by the United States and the European Union
to be a terrorist group.
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