Turkey backs military operation in Iraq

Last Modified: 17 Oct 2007
By: Nick Paton Walsh

Turkey's parliament has backed a proposal allowing troops to cross into Northern Iraq to hunt down Kurdish rebels.

President Bush said the decision would not be in Turkey's interests as it could destabilise the entire region and drag in countries like Iran - echoing calls for restraint from around the world.

But the Turkish prime minister insisted his country needed to be able to respond to rising bomb attacks - blamed on Kurdish fighters.

Turkey wants the world to see its troops, ready for action.

Unperturbed by the world's only superpower begging them not to intervene in Iraq's Kurdish north.

Yet today, weeks of pleading have amounted to nothing.

Turkey today makes good on its threat; MPs overwhelmingly giving the army authority to invade Iraq any time in the next year.

They are after the PKK, and Washington is left struggling to stop an ally invading another country to attack "terrorists".