Turkey held a emergency meeting on border security at Cankaya
Presidential Palace in Ankara on Sunday under the leadership of
President Abdullah Gul, the semi-official Anatolia news agency
reported.
The meeting came as the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) has
increased its attacks on government troops in southeastern
Turkey.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said earlier in the day that
the meeting will decide next steps against the PKK terrorist
attacks.
Prime Minister Erdogan, Chief of General Staff Gen. Yasar
Buyukanit, State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek,
Interior Minister Besir Atalay, Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin,
Force Commanders and some other high-ranking officials are
attending the emergency meeting.
Earlier on Sunday, the PKK launched an attack in Daglica region
of Yuksekove town in Hakkari province in southeastern Turkey near
the Iraqi border, killing 12 government soldiers and wounding 16
others.
The Turkish military said in a statement on Sunday afternoon
that its troops had killed 32 militants of the PKK in clashes
following the earlier PKK attack against its soldiers.
Turkish parliament has approved a motion backing the
cross-border military operations targeting the PKK based in
northern Iraq.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US
and the EU, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in
the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of
strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.
(Xinhua News Agency October 22, 2007)
