Turkey declined to give Iraq a timetable for withdrawal of troops fighting Kurdish guerrillas yesterday, resisting pressure from the United States and other allies for a quick resolution.
Turkey's military General Staff said another 77 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels had been killed in heavy fighting since Tuesday night, taking the death toll among the rebels to 230 since Turkey's offensive in northern Iraq began a week ago.
"Our objective is clear, our mission is clear and there is no timetable until... those terrorist bases are eliminated," Turkish envoy Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference after talks in Baghdad with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.
Thousands of Turkish troops crossed the border last Thursday to root out PKK fighters who have used mountainous northern Iraq as a base for their fight for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey since the 1990s.
Acting Iraqi Prime Minister Barham Saleh warned that a prolonged offensive would lead to "dire" consequences for the region and repeated Baghdad's demand that the incursion end.
"This would be highly destabilizing, it's dangerous to the stability of Iraq and the region as a whole," Saleh, a Kurd, said on the sidelines of an economic conference when asked what would happen if the offensive was not halted soon.
"The consequences are dire. This is a very dangerous, precarious situation," he said.
The Turkish General Staff said in a statement that five more Turkish soldiers had been killed since late Tuesday, taking their losses to 24. PKK claims that 81 Turkish troops have been killed could not be verified.
The Turkish statement said its forces had hit 475 new targets, including shelters, anti-aircraft facilities, training bases and command centers. It also said the weather was improving after advances had been slowed by heavy snow in the remote, mountainous region of Iraq's Kurdistan.
Gates flying to Ankara
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates headed for Ankara late yesterday with a message for Turkish leaders: Get your troops out of northern Iraq in the next few days.
"It's very important that the Turks make this operation as short as possible and then leave," Gates said before departing India. "They have to be mindful of Iraqi sovereignty. I measure quick in terms of days, a week or two, something like that, not months."
Gates said he also will ask Turkish leaders in a series of meetings today to address some of the complaints of the Kurds, and move from combat to economic and political initiatives to solve differences with them.
It was the first time that Gates put any time limit on the Turkish incursion launched into Iraq last Thursday.
The Iraqi government demanded for the first time that Turkey immediately withdraw from northern Iraq, warning on Tuesday it feared an ongoing incursion could lead to clashes with the official forces of the semiautonomous Kurdish region.
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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