LOC18:53
15:53 GMT
ISTANBUL, March 29 (KUNA) -- Turkish Army announced on Saturday that it
killed 15 members of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq
on Thursday.
It was the first time Turkish forces had killed a group of Kurdish rebels
inside northern Iraq since the end of a large-scale ground incursion into the
neighboring country last month, according to information given by the armed
forces.
The Turkish Army General Staff said on its website that the militants were
attempting to cross into Turkey, where they planned an attack.
The army fired on the separatists with long-range weapons, killing 15, and
then launched air strikes in the same area of northern Iraq on Friday.
On February 21, the military launched a major ground incursion against the
PKK, sending thousands of troops into Iraq. The General Staff said that 240
rebels were killed in the week-long campaign, along with 27 of its own men.
Since 1984, nearly 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, were killed when PKK began
its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey.
Ankara, like the European Union and United States, considers the PKK a
terrorist organization. (end)
ta.hb
KUNA 291853 Mar 08NNNN