Turkey Keeps Military Options Open on Kurdish Separatists Across Iraq Border

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Turkey Keeps Military Options Open on Kurdish Separatists Across Iraq Border

By SEBNEM ARSU
Published: September 19, 2007

ANKARA, Turkey, Sept. 18 — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused on Tuesday to rule out the possibility of military operations into northern Iraq to root out armed Kurdish separatist groups that he said had taken refuge in the border region.

Mr. Erdogan also criticized some Western countries for what he called their increasingly hawkish stance against Iran.

Meeting with foreign journalists before his trip to the United States to meet with President Bush and others attending the United Nations General Assembly next week, Mr. Erdogan said that despite the relative calm in the northern region of Iraq bordering Turkey, all options remained open in his country’s struggle against Kurdish separatist militants.

“No country can continue living under the constant threat of terrorism,” Mr. Erdogan said in his office at his party headquarters in Ankara, the capital. “This struggle has the same legitimacy for Turkey as it has for the U.S., Spain or United Kingdom.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/world/europe/19turkey.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=world&adxnnlx=1190213381-YEDoLks8tl3VIPz7WG7nGQ