"We haven't done it [coordinated strikes] for one or two months, but we would do it if necessary," Gen. İlker Başbuğ, head of the land forces and the second most powerful man in the Turkish military, told reporters on the sidelines of an international security conference held in İstanbul.

The military has regularly attacked PKK targets in northern Iraq since December of last year, and the United States is supporting the operations by providing airspace clearance and intelligence about PKK movements in mountainous northern Iraq. In February, the Turkish military launched a major ground offensive across the border, killing hundreds of PKK members and destroying a significant number of PKK camps near the border.

Iranian forces have often clashed in Iraqi border areas with rebels from the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), an offshoot of the PKK. Analysts say PJAK has bases in northern Iraq from where they operate against Iran.

Both Başbuğ and Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Ergin Saygun, speaking to reporters separately on the sidelines of the same conference, said the PKK has been experiencing a period of "chaos," as the group has been "in tatters" since last December, when the first aerial strike was launched on their camps in Iraq.

"Now they are carrying guys by trucks and white Toyotas. … They came to the press center which we hit near Zakho by bus," Saygun said, referring to the strike on May 1-2 that targeted the Kandil Mountains -- a major PKK stronghold along the Iraqi-Iranian border -- and that resulted in the killing of more than 150 PKK members. The military had stated that it also struck a "media and propaganda" center of the terrorist organization during the strike.

Saygun said hierarchic order within the PKK has been unhinged, with high-ranking leaders accusing low-ranking terrorists of being clumsy and low-rank terrorists accusing the leaders of seizing money gained from drug trafficking.

"Now they are running away to the residential areas. They are taking shelter in those areas because they know that we don't hit those areas," Saygun added. The PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by a large majority of the international community, including the European Union and the United States, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 with the aim of establishing an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish Southeast of Turkey. An estimated 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

‘Kurdish broadcasting may be useful against terrorism’

The EU and the United States are keen for NATO-member Turkey, which says it is defending itself against a terrorist organization, to keep its attacks in northern Iraq limited to avoid destabilizing Iraq and the wider region.

The EU, which Turkey aims to join, has meanwhile urged Ankara to boost the language and cultural rights of its Kurdish citizens and to do more to develop the economy of the Southeast, long hamstrung by the PKK conflict.

Last week, Parliament passed a bill allowing the state-owned Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) to broadcast programs in languages other than Turkish, paving the way for broadcasts in Kurdish, Arabic and Farsi. TRT will now be able to allocate one of its channels to 24-hour broadcasts in Kurdish.

TRT began airing weekly 30-minute programs in Kurdish and several other minority languages in 2004 as part of Turkey's bid to join the EU. But the Turkish political and military establishment has long feared that encouraging minority languages might harm unity among Turkey's 72 million people.

Commentators say the latest move is an attempt to attract viewers in the mainly Kurdish Southeast away from Denmark-based Roj TV, a popular regional station that authorities regard as a mouthpiece for the PKK.

Başbuğ was yesterday asked whether TRT's Kurdish broadcasting would be useful in the ongoing fight against PKK terrorism.

"There are some broadcasts. I should not say, you already know," Başbuğ first of all said, in apparent reference to broadcasts by Roj TV and similar television stations. "They have major clout. It will certainly be useful if it reduces their clout," Başbuğ added.


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