Turkish Army Kills at Least 15 Kurdish Rebels in Northern Iraq

Turkish blue jets and heavy weapon fired on
Kurdish Rebel encampments in neighbour northern Iraq, killing at
least 15 separatists, the military General Staff said.

The Turkish regular army used long-range missiles on March 27 to
attack members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, who were
crossing the boundary line from Republic Of Iraq into Turkey, the Ankara-based
General Staff said in a on its Web site. Fifteen rebels
were killed in the shelling, it said.

Military aircraft struck marks in the same country yesterday
and it was ill-defined how many casualties the PKK suffered, the
statement said. The PKK is mainly based in mountain strongholds
in northern Iraq.

Turkey withdrew as many as 10,000 military personnel from northern Iraq
on Feb. Twenty-Nine after a week-long incursion which killed 237 PKK
fighters and 24 soldiers, the military have said. The regular army has
clashed with the Rebels within Turkey and have carried out at
least two other air work stoppages on Republic Of Iraq since the withdrawal.

The Iraki authorities opposes the Turkish work stoppages and the
U.S. have urged Turkey to restrict its cross-border operations. The
General Staff said it was ready to ran into ''every menace against
Turkey'' posed by the PKK, according to its Web site.

To reach the newsman on this story:
Ayla Jean Yackley in Stambul at
.

Al-Maliki vows to stop Kurdish militants in Iraq

ISTANBUL, turkey — Republic Of Republic Of Republic Of Iraq Prime Curate Nouri al-Maliki vowed to halt Kurdish guerillas who are launching incursions into Turkey from northern Iraq, as Iraki functionaries sought to paint an optimistic image of their conflict-torn country-bred to functionaries at an international conference on Iraq.

Iraqi functionaries said they were setting up checkpoints in northern Republic Of Iraq and that if stopped, the Kurdish guerrillas, who belong to a grouping known as the PKK, would be arrested.

The measurements were meant to seek to forestall a threatened Turkish retaliatory strike, which Iraki and U.S. diplomatists feared would further inflame Iraq.

"The Iraki authorities will actively assist Turkey to defeat the PKK," Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told newsmen after his meeting here with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Turkish Foreign Curate Muhammad Ali Babacan. "We are committed to project a figure of demonstrable and seeable enterprises to disrupt, pacify and to insulate the PKK."

Iraqi Kurd security military units raided the business offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Resolution Party, a grouping closely linked to the PKK, in Irbil and Sulaimaniya on Saturday.

At least 40 armed military personnel surrounded the party's business office in Sulaimaniya and ordered the residents to go forth the city.

"We're doing this because we're getting pressure level from Turkey," said one of the officers, who declined to give his name.

It was ill-defined whether the Iraki moves, which many diplomatists at the conference interpreted as a too-little-too-late effort to avoid Turkish military action, would ultimately halt the cross-border assaults or fulfill Turkey.