Pressure on Turkey to crush PKK may hurt US, EU ties

[Dover]

Source: Reuters

ANKARA, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Turkey faces increasing pressure at home after Friday's deadly ambush to launch a major offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq that would hurt its ties with Washington and the European Union, analysts say.

Tapping into widespread indignation and nationalism sparked by the attack that killed at least 15 Turkish soldiers, newspaper Vatan's front-page headline said, "Enough is enough!", along with photos of the dead soldiers.

Turkish television stations on Sunday broadcast live the soldiers' funerals, with tens of thousands of mourners across the country waving Turkish flags.

In the worst single attack on the military in a year, rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Friday raided a military outpost in a region in southeast Turkey bordering Iraq. Twenty soldiers were wounded and two more are still missing.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and the powerful military have vowed to step up operations to crush the PKK, which was been weakened by Turkish warplane strikes in their bases in northern Iraq.
But analysts said the attack puts the government in a difficult position as it faces calls to strike back at the PKK but must be careful not to alienate its allies with any large-scale response.

NATO-member Turkey has attacked PKK bases in northern Iraq several times in the past 12 months but has confined itself to shelling and air strikes since a brief land offensive in February, which Ankara cut short under U.S. pressure...>



Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L5327103.htm

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Turkey military says launched air strike in N. Iraq
06 Oct 2008 10:12:41 GMT

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ANK000460.htm

[Dover]

1. Turkey is getting squeezed from all sides as well as internally...not good.

It's complicated, to say the least.

http://bosphoruswatch.blogspot.com/2008/05/turkey-in-between-syria-israel-georgia.html