Turkey set to attack Kurds in Iraq by

Published: October 11, 2007, 10:47 am

Turkey set to attack Kurds in IraqBy Ximena OrtizTurkey has defied the wishes of the United States by giving its military a green light to cross the border into Iraq, following a number of ambushes apparently waged by a Kurdish rebel group with bases in northern Iraq. And on Wednesday, Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked suspected rebel positions close to the Iraq border.Turkey's decision could come to imperil the already precarious stability and prosperity of Iraq's Kurdish region. And while the stakes for the United States, Iraq and Turkey in Iraqi Kurdistan are substantial in broad economic and geopolitical terms, one of the major factors is the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), a rag-tag group numbering in the low-thousands and holed up in rugged, mountainous terrain.In the face of ambushes on Sunday linked to the PKK, in which more than 10 Turkish soldiers were killed, and the subsequent escalation of tension with Turkey, the Iraqi Kurdish leadership appears to be

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