CIZRE, TURKEY — Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships reportedly pounded Kurdish rebel positions along the Turkey-Iraq border Wednesday, broadening military operations against insurgents amid persistent fears Turkey will launch a major offensive inside Iraq.
Turkish Cabinet members and military generals held a six-hour meeting in Ankara to discuss a possible operation in northern Iraq but decided to recommend the government take economic measures first to force cooperation by Iraqis against Kurdish rebels.
The state-run Anatolia news agency reported that Turkish warplanes and attack helicopters bombed mountain paths used by rebels to cross the porous border from Iraq and stage hit-and-run attacks against soldiers in southeastern Turkey.
“Along with Sikorsky and Cobra helicopters providing air support, warplanes that took off from (the city of) Diyarbakir are reported to have bombed and destroyed bases of the terrorists,” the agency reported.
Pentagon officials declined to confirm reports of airstrikes.
“I don’t know of any Turkish airstrikes in that area today,” Maj. Gen. Richard Sherlock, Joint Chiefs of Staff operational planning director, told a Defense Department news conference.
But residents in the Iraqi Kurdish village of Derishkit claimed that two Turkish jet fighters struck a target on the banks of the Zey-Gowra River about 4 miles inside Iraq. They were unable to offer any more details about the apparent attack.
An Associated Press Television News cameraman saw eight F-16s loaded with bombs and attack helicopters take off after nightfall from a base in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir. The cameraman also saw about a dozen transport helicopters fly along Mount Cudi near the border with Iraq and at least one warplane fly past Cizre, a town close to the border.
The reported airstrikes come after days of Turkish shelling in the region. On Sunday, Turkish helicopter gunships penetrated Iraqi territory after Kurdish rebels ambushed a Turkish military convoy near the border, killing 12 soldiers and leaving eight others missing.
U.S.-made Cobra and Super Cobra attack helicopters also chased Kurdish rebels 3 miles into Iraqi territory on Sunday before returning to their bases in Turkey, a government official said Wednesday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
After the meeting Wednesday, Cabinet officials and military leaders decided to recommend the government “to first take necessary economic measures against those groups directly or indirectly supporting the separatist terrorist organization in the region,” a statement said.
The target of the economic measures was not made clear in the statement, but Turkey has been pondering sanctions to force the Iraqi Kurds to cooperate in its fight against the separatist rebels of PKK, the acronym of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
The self-ruling Kurdish administration in Iraq’s north has benefited from Turkish investment for construction works, including airports and housing projects. Ankara is also selling electricity to northern Iraq, and much of the imported food and other supplies comes from Turkey.
In the Netherlands, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates also said he saw little sense in airstrikes or major ground assaults by U.S., Turkish or other forces against rebels in northern Iraq until more is known about their locations along the border.
“Without good intelligence, just sending large numbers of troops across the border (from Turkey) or dropping bombs doesn’t seem to make much sense to me,” Gates said.
