Agence France-Presse,
ANKARA: Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebel targets along the Iraqi border on Wednesday as government and military leaders weighed their next move against rebel bases in northern Iraq.
Fighter jets bombed and destroyed several Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) mountain positions in Sirnak, Hakkari, Siirt and Van provinces bordering Iraq and Iran, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
Helicopter gunships also joined the raids that followed the killing of 12 soldiers in a PKK ambush near the Iraqi border on Sunday. The PKK said it captured eight soldiers in the clashes.
Another operation against the PKK was under way in the eastern province of Tunceli, Anatolia said.
The military said 34 PKK militants were killed in operations that followed Sunday's attack, which increased pressure on Ankara for a military incursion into northern Iraq, where the rebels take refuge.
Turkey's National Security Council met amid new international appeals for restraint.
Meanwhile in Baghdad, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani denied a Turkish report that he had offered to extradite leaders of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) based inside Iraq.
“We have said several times that the leaders of the PKK are not staying in Kurdish cities of Iraq but they live with 1,000 (eds: correct) of their fighters in the rugged Qandil mountains,” said a statement from his office.
“It is impossible to arrest them and deliver them to Turkey.”
The Qandil mountains are located along the Iraq-Turkey border, north of the city of Sulaimaniyah, a stronghold of Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party.
Earlier, a Turkish government source said that Talabani told Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan in Baghdad on Tuesday that he “did not exclude the possibility” of extraditing PKK militants.
Babacan had called on Iraq to hand over about 100 PKK members named on a list sent to Baghdad earlier this year, the source said. They were to discuss the matter with a visiting Iraqi delegation on Thursday, he added.
Turkey's President Abdullah Gul chaired the National Security Council meeting of top officers and senior ministers to discuss options for tackling the PKK, which has been fighting for self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984.
Ankara says it will not flinch from military action if Iraq and the United States fail to clamp down on PKK bases in northern Iraq.
Politicians again raised the possibility of economic sanctions against Iraq.
Foreign Trade Minister Kursat Tuzmen pointed out that Turkey was Iraq's largest trading partner. “We are keeping all our options open.”
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hinted Tuesday of export restrictions on vital items such as power, water and food.
Washington called for calm on both sides.
“We are concerned about the continuing skirmishes that are happening up there and terrorist attacks that are being launched by the PKK against the Turks,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. “We continue to urge both sides to exercise restraint.”
But NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, backed Turkey.
“The allies expressed full solidarity with Turkey in the face of these horrible terrorist attacks against Turkish soldiers and civilians,” he said.
“I think the Turkish government is showing remarkable restraint under the present circumstances,” he added. Turkey is a member of the military alliance.
The European Union, which Turkey hopes to join, called on Ankara to refrain from unilateral military action and give diplomacy a chance.
“Turkey should think twice before launching a military intervention,” Manuel Lobo Antunes, the European affairs minister of Portugal, told the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Lisbon currently holds the EU presidency.
Turkey has long demanded that Iraq stop the PKK from using its territory, cut off logistical support to the group and hand over rebel leaders to Turkey.
And in Berlin, the United States' assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs Daniel Fried, said the Kurdish administration in Iraq's autonomous north had to do more to weed out PKK rebels.
“It is in the interests of the Kurdish residents of Iraq that these terrorist attacks stop and that Turkey and Iraq become good neighbours,” said in Berlin.
Massud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, on Wednesday urged the PKK to end its armed struggle.
