Turkey Will Invade Iraq to Confront Rebel Kurds

TURKEY’S parliament has voted overwhelmingly to launch a cross- border assault against Kurdish insurgents based in northern Iraq.

Brushing aside appeals from Washington and Baghdad to show restraint, the Ankara parliament yesterday voted 509 to 19 in support of an attack.

Ministers blame the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the group launched its armed struggle for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

In one attack two weeks ago 15 soldiers were killed.

Yesterday, the Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan played down rumours of an imminent assault.

But the vote gives his country’s army – the second biggest in Nato – the chance to cross the border when it sees fit.

President George Bush warned that any action taken in Iraq could destabilise the region further and called for a diplomatic solution to end the crisis.

Oil prices hovered close to a record level of $90 a barrel this week as markets took fright at the possibility of renewed fighting.

But analysts say that, despite its tough rhetoric, Turkey may limit itself to aerial attacks on rebel targets and small forays across the border.

rebel Kurds FULLY COMP INSURANCE 19+

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