ANKARA, Turkey, June 22 (UPI) -- A series of high-level meetings have taken place in Ankara over the volatile security situation along Turkey's border with Kurdish Iraq.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a two-hour, closed-door meeting Thursday with army chief Gen. Yusar Buykanit, according to the newspaper Today's Zaman, following talks with National Intelligence Agency Secretary-General Emre Taner and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.
A day earlier top government and military leaders had come together in a national security meeting.
Discussion all centered on attacks along Turkey's ethic-Kurdish border areas by separatist guerillas of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, who operate out of Iraq and have battled the Ankara government for decades.
Turkish military officials estimate more than 3,000 PKK guerrillas use northern Iraq as a safe haven, while more than 2,000 are operating in Turkey's Anatolia province.
Turkey -- U.S. ally, NATO member and EU candidate -- has established a security cordon along the border and is threatening cross-border military operations. Such a venture would pose a dilemma for the United States, which needs Iraqi Kurds in its fight against terrorists in Iraq and in its quest to establish stability in Iraq. It would also pose a dilemma for Ankara. Cross-border actions, in addition to destabilizing Iraq further, would antagonize its NATO allies and would severely damage, if not sink, its bid to join its economy to that of Western Europe.
Ankara has been pressuring the Iraq government to crack down on the PKK using its northern territory and has warned it is losing patience with lack of action by Baghdad and U.S. troops in northern Iraq.
