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ANKARA, Turkey-Syria's president said Wednesday that Turkey had a right to stage a cross-border incursion into northern Iraq to chase separatist Kurdish rebels as the Turkish parliament began debating the issue.Turkish leaders have stressed that an offensive against the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, would not immediately follow the motion authorizing the incursion.Hours before the vote, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called his Turkish counterpart asking that diplomacy be given a chance before Turkey sends troops across the border to pursue separatist Kurds in mountain hide-outs, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. Al-Maliki said Iraq was "determined" to end PKK activities on its territory and had given "strict instructions" to the regional Iraqi Kurdish administration in Iraq's north on the issue, Anatolia said.Al-Maliki asked that Iraq be given more time and said it he was sending a delegation to Turkey to discuss cooperation, Anatolia said.Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded by saying Turkey could "not tolerate losing any more time," the agency reported. Erdogan's aides were not immediately available to confirm the conversation.Visiting Syrian President Bashar Assad said Turkey had a legitimate right to stage a cross-border offensive."We understand that such an operation would be aimed toward a certain group which attacks Turkish soldiers. We support decisions that Turkey has on its agenda, we are backing them," Assad told reporters. "We accept this as Turkey's legitimate right. As Syria, we are supporting all decisions by Turkey and we are standing behind them."Iraq on Tuesday also dispatched one of its two vice presidents to Ankara who also called for diplomacy."Iraq must be given the chance to stop PKK rebels who cross the border before Turkey takes any step," Anatolia quoted Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi as saying before he left Ankara."I got what I wanted from our talks. There is a new atmosphere to stop the current crisis," he was also quoted as saying. Al-Hashimi met Tuesday with Erdogan and other Turkish officials.On Wednesday, an alliance spokesman said NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has spoken to Turkey's president, adding his voice to international calls for restraint in the crisis with Iraq.Turkey invited ambassadors from countries bordering Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations to the Foreign Ministry for a briefing on why it was passing the motion in parliament.The motion, authorizing an attack into Iraq sometime in the next year, has the backing of all but one party in parliament. Only a small Kurdish party has said it would vote against it."The passage of the motion in parliament does not mean that an operation will be carried out at once," Erdogan said Tuesday. "Turkey will act with common sense and determination when necessary and when the time is ripe."Public anger over attacks by Kurdish guerrillas is high but Turkish officials are mindful that two dozen Iraqi campaigns since the 1980s have failed to eradicate the PKK. A cross-border attack into northern Iraq could also strain ties with the United States, a NATO ally that opposes any disruption of its efforts to stabilize Iraq.Kurdish rebels from the PKK have been fighting since 1984 for autonomy in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast, a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.Turkey has complained about what it considers a lack of U.S. support in the fight against the PKK, a frustration with Washington intensified because of another sensitive issue: the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.A panel in the U.S. House approved a resolution last week labeling the killings genocide, an affront to Turks who deny there was any systematic campaign to eliminate Armenians. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will schedule a vote soon on the resolution, which President Bush opposes.
As in the days of Noah....
