Turkey's Ruling Party Mulls Strike on Northern Iraq

Turkey's ruling party decided yesterday to seek parliamentary approval for an offensive against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, a move that could open a new front in the Iraq war and disrupt one of that nation's few relatively peaceful areas.

The government did not say it had decided to launch such an attack, which could jeopardize Turkey's ties with America. The U.S. warned against sending troops across the border and urged Turkey to work with Iraq's government to quell the Turkish Kurd guerrillas.

"If they have a problem, they need to work together to resolve it, and I'm not sure that unilateral incursions are the way to go," a State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said.

In the past, Turkish troops have made small-scale "hot pursuit" raids into Iraq that officials say do not require Parliament's approval. The last major incursion against the militant separatists operating out of Iraq's Kurdish region was in 1997.