Gül lends support to Iran’s anti-PEJAK operation in Iraq

"Unfortunately, terrorists have the ability to operate in Iraq's north due to a power vacuum in Iraq," Gül told a press conference after talks with Iraqi Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi in Ankara after he was asked to comment on reports that Iran was preparing for an incursion into Iraq. "They pose a threat to Turkey as well as to other neighbors. Therefore, every country has the right to defend its borders and take legitimate measures for its own security," he said

News reports on Iraqi Kurdish Web sites and Turkish agencies said Iran's army crossed the border into neighboring Iraq and shelled the Kandil Mountain located in northern Iraq, where PEJAK, the Iranian wing of the PKK, has camps.

Iranian troops penetrated five kilometers into Iraqi territory causing massive material damage, the Anatolia news agency said yesterday. Similar reports were released by Iraqi Kurdish Web sites on Thursday, which quoted local officials in the region as saying Iran has launched a "full-scale war."

PEJAK terrorists are hiding in mountain shelters amid intensive shelling by the Iranian army against the group's bases on Kandil Mountain and the Hajj Umran area, Anatolia said. Some 2,000 families fled the region due to the shelling and took shelter in tents they set up outside the mountainous zone.

Iranian authorities have declined to comment on reports of any operations so far. On Wednesday, government spokes-man Gholamhossein Elham denied reports that Iran was distributing leaflets in northern Iraq warning the villagers in the region to evacuate the area ahead of an Iranian military offensive against PEJAK.

"These leaflets are aimed at creating concern among our neighbors, especially the Kurds living in northern Iraq, by means of propaganda and psychological warfare, if the leaflets even exist," he told reporters.

The Anatolia, citing an unidentified resident, said villagers fled their homes after some members of PEJAK came to their village and told them to leave the area because there would be massive clashes in the region soon. The villagers left their homes two days ago after taking as many belongings as possible, Anatolia reported.

Turkey and Iran are combating the PKK and PEJAK groups operating from bases in Iraq's mountainous north and northeast. Iraqi Kurds decline to recognize the PKK as a terrorist group, so designated by the United States and the European Union, and refuse to fight against the group, saying it is an internal Turkish matter. They have also reportedly protested to Iran over the continuing shelling in northern Iraq.

Report: Turkish cross-border operation on table 

A cross-border operation by Turkey into northern Iraq to hit bases of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is still an option, a report released by US intelligence on Iraq said. The report, called "National Intelligence Estimate," represents the consensus of 16 US intelligence agencies and says that Iraq's neighbors will continue to "focus on improving their leverage in Iraq" in anticipation of a US troop pullout.

"Turkey probably would use a range of measures to protect what it perceives as its interests in Iraq," it said in its declassified findings. "The risk of cross-border operations against the People's Congress of Kurdistan (KG) terrorist group based in northern Iraq remains," it added, referring to the PKK. Turkey signed a preliminary deal with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, committing the Iraqi government to fight the terrorist group in its territory. The deal is interpreted as reducing possibilities for a cross-border operation anytime soon in Iraq because it says a counterterrorism agreement will be reached in two months.