Word: turkish
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Dozens of Turkish military trucks rumbled towards the Iraqi border as Turks across the country took to the streets to demand retaliation for an attack by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) separatists based in north Iraq that killed 12 Turkish soldiers. It was the third large-scale attack in recent weeks. Eight Turkish soldiers are still missing after the incident. Sunday's attack may well prove the last straw for Turkey's hawkish military - NATO's second largest army after the U.S. - which has been readying to cross the border into north Iraq in pursuit of the PKK for several months...
...fighter jets and attack helicopters. On Monday, a convoy of 50 military vehicles, loaded with soldiers and weapons, was seen heading toward the border, according to the Associated Press. In Istanbul, the capital Ankara and the port city of Mersin, thousands of protestors, wearing black ribbons and waving the Turkish flag, denounced the PKK attack. Across the country, public events and celebrations (including a concert by the American pop star Beyonce in Istanbul) were canceled to mourn the army deaths...
...lead Turkey into a quagmire much like the U.S. is facing in the rest of Iraq. The PKK's Kandil Mountain stronghold is notoriously rugged terrain well suited to guerrilla warfare. Air strikes alone are unlikely to be effective against it. A major land offensive, depending on how deep Turkish troops venture and in what numbers, could lead beyond fighting the PKK, to clashes between Turkish troops and Iraqi Kurdish soldiers, as well as civilian casualties...
...Worse, Turkish public fury has now found a second target in the Kurdish regional government of north Iraq, which popular opinion in Turkey has accused of harboring the PKK. Opposition politicians have called on the military to declare the Iraqi Kurdish administration an "enemy" and target them in any operation. Turkey is already deeply suspicious of Iraq's Kurds and their progress over the past four years toward creating an independent Kurdish state, which could in turn foment unrest among its own Kurdish population. "From this point on, our barrels are pointed at [Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud] Barzani," wrote Ertugrul...
...Somalia. Benedict was quick to turn to the "spirit of Assisi" in trying to calm the waters after his Regensberg speech, inviting Rome-based Muslim diplomats for a meeting in the Vatican and visiting the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, where he prayed shoulder-to-shoulder with the Turkish imam. Though tensions remain, a letter earlier this month addressed to the Pope and other Christian leaders, signed by 138 prominent Muslim clerics and scholars, is seen as a potential breakthrough in relations between Islam and Christianity...