TURKEYWARNS U.S.TO KEEP OUT OF ITS AIRSPACE AFTER F-16 INCIDENT

TURKEYWARNS U.S.TO KEEP OUT OF ITS AIRSPACE AFTER F-16 INCIDENT
National PostPublished: Wednesday, May 30, 2007
ANKARA - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, pictured, warned the United States yesterday against repeating violations of Turkey's airspace near the border with Iraq, threatening unspecified action. "We warned them not to repeat this... If this happens again ... if this takes a different dimension, what we will do is obvious," he told the NTV news channel. His government says two U.S. F-16 fighters jets entered its airspace near its southeastern border with Iraq on May 24 and remained in Turkish airspace for four minutes. U.S. officials said the violations were "accidental." But the incident made the headlines, with some media suggesting the violations were a deliberate attempt at intimidation as Ankara discusses whether it should conduct a military incursion into northern Iraq to strike at Turkish Kurd rebels based there. Yesterday, Turkish security forces killed 10 Kurdish separatist fighters in Van, near the Iranian border. Security forces have been battling rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) since the group began its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey in 1984. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict. The PKK has been blamed for a suicide bombing in Ankara last week in which six people were killed. Reuters