ANKARA, Turkey — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday that U.S. objections would not stop Turkey from crossing into Iraq to eliminate Kurdish rebels. The Turkish military said it had killed more than 30 insurgents who were poised to launch an attack near the Iraqi border.
President Abdullah Gul said Turkey is running out of patience with the Kurdish separatist attacks. A steady stream of U.S.-made Turkish fighter jets roared into the sky near the Iraqi border, apparently loaded with bombs.
The Turkish military said it had spotted a “group of terrorists” near a military outpost in the province of Semdinli close to the border with Iraq on Tuesday and fired on them with tanks, artillery and other heavy weaponry. It said the group had been preparing for an attack.
The Bush administration is urging Turkey not to launch an incursion that would destabilize Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish north, Iraq’s most stable region.
The administration “might wish that we do not carry out a cross-border offensive, but we make the decision on what we have to do,” Erdogan said during a visit to Romania. “We have taken necessary steps in this struggle so far, and now we are forced to take this step and we will take it.”
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