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Iraq protests against shelling by Turkey

* US concerned over unrest at Turkish-Iraqi border

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused Turkey of “intensively shelling” northern Iraq this week, adding it had handed the Turkish envoy in Baghdad a protest letter.

A statement from the Foreign Ministry said the shelling caused “huge damage” in an area between Dahuk and Arbil provinces in Iraq’s north. A ministry spokesman said the shelling took place over three hours late on Wednesday and early Thursday. “This attack caused wide fires and huge damage in the area and made citizens fearful,” the Foreign Ministry statement said, without precisely identifying the damage.

Financial markets were rattled by a report late on Wednesday that Turkey had launched a major incursion across the border into northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels.

Turkey denied the report but a military source said troops had conducted a limited raid, a rare incursion into northern Iraq where 4,000 rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) are said to be hiding. Iraq’s Foreign Ministry called for talks between the two governments.

“Such an action could affect the confidence between both countries and affect the friendly atmosphere between both governments,” the statement added.

US concerned: The United States on Friday voiced concern over the current unrest at the Iraqi-Turkish border, after recently warning Ankara against any cross-border military action in pursuit of Kurdish rebels.“We hope there is no unilateral military action taken on the other side of the Iraqi border,” US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told Turkey when he was visiting Singapore on June 3.

“The Turks have a genuine concern with Kurdish terrorism that takes place on Turkish soil,” Gates said, adding that the United States was working with Ankara to resolve the problem. US concerns appeared to materialise a few days later, although reports of a major Turkish offensive in northern Iraq were promptly denied by Ankara, Washington and even by the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). “A Turkish-PKK war in Iraq must be avoided at all costs,” Heritage Foundation analyst and former US deputy defence secretary Peter Brookes said in a June 4 New York Post op-ed piece. Gates on Sunday said Ralston was in constant contact with Turkish officials. Former US ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke last year recommended that US troops be deployed in the Kurdish region of Iraq. In the United States, the Iraq Study Group Report, co-chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former lawmaker Lee Hamilton, said a referendum on the future of Kirkuk would be “explosive” and should be delayed. agencies

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