Outgoing Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt yesterday praised an incursion into northern Iraq in February, saying the bad weather conditions were deliberately chosen to ensure success in the key offensive against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) based there.

Operations are usually conducted in the best possible circumstances. We chose the worst conditions," said Büyükanıt, who is due to hand over his post to Gen. İlker Başbuğ this week. Speaking at a meeting with reporters, Büyükanıt noted that the army planners had examined the weather reports for the past decades and determined that February was when the worst weather conditions prevail in the area where the operation had been planned.
"It was not possible for them [the PKK members] to detonate their bombs because of the snow. That was why we had no major casualties," said Büyükanıt, who oversaw the ground incursion, the biggest anti-PKK operation in northern Iraq in several years. "If it were in the summer, our casualties would have been big. The operation results proved us right," he added.

At the time, the General Staff said the eight-day ground offensive, which took place between Feb. 21 and Feb. 29, was a success, declaring that most of the targets set before the operation had been destroyed. Some 240 terrorists were killed, while others fled the area, the military had said.

The ground offensive had the consent of the United States, which provided intelligence to assist the counter-PKK attack, but Washington had also stepped up its pressure for a quick conclusion of the operation, fearing a prolonged stay could destabilize northern Iraq and harm US ties with Iraqi Kurds. Turkey has been launching aerial strikes against PKK targets in northern Iraq since December.

When it completed the ground offensive earlier than most observers had predicted, the military and the government came under criticism that the decision to end the operation came under US pressure. But the military asserted in February that there was no outside influence on the decision to pull out the troops, saying the start and end dates of the operation were decided purely on the basis of military needs and requirements.

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