Iraq: Kurdish rebels to declare truce

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, will announce Monday a unilateral cease-fire following a deadly attack on Turkish forces, a spokesman for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told CNN.

Talabani has been meeting with leaders in Iraq's Kurdistan region to quell tensions with Turkey after PKK rebels ambushed a Turkish infantry unit early Sunday and killed at least 12 soldiers.

Eight soldiers are still missing. The Firat News Agency reported rebel commander Bahoz Erdal as saying that "right now, these soldiers are hostages in the hands of our forces... We have not harmed them and we will not."

The attack happened in southeastern Turkey, but Turkey's military said the rebels were based in northern Iraq.

Sunday's attack has raised the prospect of a major Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq targeting the Kurdish separatists.

Last week Turkey's parliament voted overwhelmingly to authorize possible military strikes inside Iraqi territory against PKK fighters accused of operating from bases there.

Amid U.S. and Iraqi calls for restraint, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, currently touring the Middle East, vowed that Turkey would continue to pursue diplomatic efforts.

"But in the end, if we do not reach any results, there are other means we might have to use," he said.

Responding to Sunday's ambush, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the U.S. to take "speedy steps" toward cracking down on the PKK in Iraq, according to The Associated Press.

Erdogan said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had expressed sympathy and asked "for a few days" in a telephone conversation late Sunday.

In an interview conducted prior to the attack, Erdogan told the UK's Times newspaper that Turkey would do "whatever is necessary" to defend itself.

"If a neighboring country is providing a safe haven for terrorism ... we have rights under international law and we will use those rights and we don't have to get permission from anybody," said Erdogan, who was due to meet UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday in London.

Erdogan also said the U.S. risked "losing an important friend" if lawmakers passed a bill declaring as "genocide" the mass killings of Armenians by Turks during World War I.

In addition to those killed and missing, up to 16 soldiers were reported wounded in Sunday's ambush. The Belgian-based pro-Kurdish Firat news agency released the names of seven Turkish troops it claimed had been captured by separatists. It said an eighth soldier had also been captured, AP reported.

Turkish forces retaliated to Sunday's attack by killing 34 PKK fighters, according to a statement on an official government Web site.

Cross-border shelling continued on Monday as AP reported sightings of convoys containing dozens of military vehicles headed from the southeast town of Sirnak toward the Iraqi border.

Meanwhile around 3,000 protesters gathered in Istanbul on Monday for a second day in a row to call for an immediate military strike, CNN's Paula Hancocks reported. Small protests also took place in Ankara, the Turkish capital, and elsewhere in the country.

After an emergency meeting Sunday of Turkey's military and political leaders, President Abdullah Gul issued a statement saying: "We will continue on our path of determination in fighting the terrorist organization. We respect Iraq's national borders. But [we] will not tolerate those who help and harbor terrorists."

Iraqi officials deny that militants are operating from territory under their jurisdiction, claiming instead that PKK leaders are hiding out in rugged mountain areas along the Turkish border that are not controlled by Iraq.

Iraq's Talabani, who is Kurdish, addressed the rising tensions with Turkey during a meeting with Kurdish regional leader Massoud Barzani in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region.

Talabani reiterated Iraq's demand that PKK rebels lay down their arms, and re-stated calls for a diplomatic solution.

He also said Sunday that Iraqi forces were unable to find the rebel leaders because of the difficult landscape.

"The Turkish military, with its mightiness, could not annihilate them or arrest them, so how could we arrest them and hand them to Turkey?" Talabani said at a news conference following his meeting with Barzani.

When asked how Iraq's government would respond to the possibility of Turkish ground forces in northern Iraq, Barzani urged dialogue with Turkey but said: "If we are targeted directly we will defend ourselves."

On Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said a major cross-border operation would be "contrary to Turkey's interests as well as to our own and that of Iraq" following talks with Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul in Kiev, Ukraine.

The U.S. fears a large-scale military operation by Turkey in northern Iraq would undermine the stability of the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad and jeopardize supply lines that support U.S. troops in Iraq. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh in Baghdad and Talia Kayali in Atlanta contributed to this report

Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

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