Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al- Muallem on Sunday urged an immediate move to find a political solution to the strained situation along Iraqi-Turkish borders, the official SANA news agency reported.
Muallem made the remarks in a phone call with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshiar Zibari during which the two sides discussed latest developments in Iraq and the outcome of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's recent visit to Ankara.
Muallem also called for putting an end to the terrorist activities launched by the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) against Turkey.
For his part, Zibari thanked Syria, its leadership and people for caring about this issue, promising to continue communications between the two sides in this regard, SANA said.
Also in the day, Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal denied media reports that al-Assad had expressed support for any Turkish military offensive against the PKK militants in Iraq.
Bilal said the file of a Turkish military attack against the PKK was "not supported by President al-Assad during his talks with the Turkish leadership," SANA said.
Last Wednesday, al-Assad said in the Turkish capital that his country supported Turkish government's decisions against terrorism and terrorist acts and accepted such a move as a legitimate right of the country.
But al-Assad, who was then on a four-day visit to Turkey, also said that peaceful political solutions would resolve the current problems, adding that the forces invading Iraq were the main source of the terrorist activities in that country.
Earlier on Sunday, PKK militants staged an attack against Turkish troops in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border, which killed 12 Turkish soldiers and wounded 16 others.
In response, the Turkish army launched a retaliation military offensive, which has killed 32 PKK militants so far.
The PKK's attack and Turkey's response came four days after the Turkish parliament approved a motion backing the cross-border military operations targeting the PKK based in northern Iraq.
The PKK has increased its attacks on government troops in southeastern Turkey, which has led to rising Turkish demands for an incursion into northern Iraq to crush the rebels based there.
The group, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U. S. and the EU, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.
Source: Xinhua
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