Turkish troops in Iraq will return fire if Kurds attack any of its soldiers, the Turkish military said yesterday.
The announcement came despite opposition from the US-backed Iraqi governing council and neighbouring countries to the deployment, sanctioned by Turkey's parliament last week. Yesterday, Turkey and its Nato ally, the United States, continued discussing deployment plans.
"The necessary response will be given if Iraqi Kurds attack our convoy," Lieut Gen Ilker Basbug, second in command at the military general staff, said at a news conference in Ankara.
Turkey has agreed in principle with the US to command a division of soldiers north or west of Baghdad for at least a year, Gen Basbug said.
But Iraq's governing body strongly opposes Turkey stationing its troops north of the capital, fearing that would raise tensions with Iraqi Kurds administering northern Iraq.
Iraq's governing body yesterday stuck by its opposition to Turkish troops joining US-led occupation forces and won support for its stand from neighbouring Jordan. Kurds in Iraq's north, where Turkey has for years maintained forces to pursue Turkish Kurdish separatists, say they do not want Turks to serve close to their enclave.
Ankara suspects Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq could push for more independence and stir up trouble in its own mainly-Kurdish southeast, scene of a decades-long fight against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels. More than 30,000 people have died in the conflict, most of them Kurds.
Pakistan and India say they may also join Turkey in an expanded international force policing Iraq, but have indicated that UN approval would be needed first.