The United States was informed by Turkey well before the latter launched weekend air raids in northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
"We had ample notification of the air strikes by the Turkish Air Force against PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party) positions in northern Iraq," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said, confirming for the first time that Washington knew of Ankara's plans.
"It was communicated to us through the Ankara coordination center, this has been opened for some months now, in which you have Turkish personnel along with U.S. military personnel working to share intelligence."
Turkey said on Sunday its warplanes bombed the PKK targets in northern Iraq early in the day.
In addition, Turkish troops entered the Iraqi territories in the northern Kurdish autonomous region early on Tuesday, targeting Kurdish rebels, a spokesman from the Kurdish border guards said.
"About 100 Turkish troops carrying light weapons entered the mountainous Bradrak area near the border," the spokesman told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Turkey's Ambassador to the United States Nabi Sensoy said here on Wednesday that it was American intelligence that made Turkey's latest raids in northern Iraq on Kurdish rebels possible.
It was reported that Turkish chief of staff General Yasar Buyukanit said earlier in the week that the United States gave the green light for Sunday's air raids by providing "intelligence" and opening Iraqi airspace.
Security operations are underway in southeastern and eastern Turkey as 100,000 Turkish troops have massed along Turkish-Iraqi borders in preparations for a possible cross-border operation to crush about 3,000-strong PKK rebels.
The United States, supporting Ankara's effort to fight the outlawed PKK operating at Turkey-Iraq border area, declined to condemn Turkey's unilateral incursion into Iraq on the PKK.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, 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.
Source: Xinhua
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