Turkey OKs Strikes in Iraq

526-19 vote gives year-long permission to respond to Kurdish attacks
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 17, 2007 10:40 AM CDT
Turkey OKs Strikes in Iraq
Turkish soldiers in an armored vehicle patrol on a road in the province of Sirnak, on the Turkish-Iraqi border, southeastern Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007. Turkey's Parliament on Wednesday was expected to approve a possible cross-border military incursion into northern Iraq to chase separatist Kurdish...   (Associated Press)

The Turkish Parliament today authorized its prime minister to send the country's military into Iraq to combat Kurdish separatists who have been accused of raids on Turkish soil. The 526-19 vote gives year-long permission for military strikes across the border, CNN reports. With 60,000 Turkish troops amassed in the area and some shells fired into Iraq this weekend, Baghdad scrambled for a diplomatic solution and President Bush urged Turkey, again, not to send troops into Iraq.

Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki spoke to his Turkish counterpart today and sent a vice president to Ankara. Maliki pledged to “do whatever necessary together” to solve the problem, the Times reports. But Maliki’s offer to help to stop the Kurdish rebels was undercut by a top Iraqi military official, who told CNN that Baghdad won’t send troops to the border mountains—and that regional authorities should deal with the problem. (More Turkey stories.)

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