IRAN WARNS TURKEY IT CAN RETAIATE BOMBING OF BORDER VILLAGE
PARIS 18TH July (IPS) Iran told Turkey that it reserves the right to retaliate to the Turkish air raid on Piranshahr, a border village the Turks says rebels and separatists of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) have bases there.
Iranian public media reported that Turkish warplanes had dropped rockets and bombs on Iranian border outposts in Piranshahr and villages around the city, killing and wounding several people, including some guards, and causing extensive damages.
Mr. Hamiz Reza Asefi, the Iranian Foreign Ministry's senior spokesman immediately condemned severely the attack as "unprovoked and unexplainable", and warned that the Turkish government would have to "shoulder all the consequences", according to the official news agency IRNA.
Turkey routinely attack the Northern part of Iraq in search of the PKK hideouts and often Turkish Air Force bomb this region, but this is the first time that it had attacked neighbouring Iran.
There was no comment from the Turkish sources.
A fifteen years old war between the Turkish Army and the PKK, a Kurdish Stalinist movement fighting for the creation of an independent Kurdish State, has left more than 25.000 dead on both sides.
Turkish special forces arrested Abdollah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK last February in Nairobi, Kenya, where he was hiding at the Greek Embassy
Condemning vigorously the Turkish "violation of Iranian airspace" and raid on Piranshahr and other border villages, killing and wounding an undisclosed number of people General Hasan Firopuzabadi, the Deputy Supreme Commander of all Iranian Armed forces said Iran reserves the right to react in accordance with the international laws and regulations and considers turkey as responsible for any consequences to the event.
Describing the attack as a "flagrant violation of the international law and against the good neighbourly relations", a statement issued by the Iranian Armed Forces Head Quarters expressed hope that the Turkish government "should not be affected by the Zionist insinuations" and avoid from any action which could harm the good neighbourly relations and threaten the regional calm and security.
The reported attack came as the Turkish President Suleiman Demirel is on state visit in Israel.
The reported strikes appeared to be the latest of several border incidents linked toTurkish operations against Kurdish separatist rebels fighting against Ankara. Iran has repeatedly complained of attacks by Turkish forces, including air strikes, on Iranian territory.
Relations between the two states have been tense over Turkish charges that Iran is backing Islamic militants in Turkey and Tehran has strongly objected to Ankara's signing a security and military co-operation pact with Israel. ENDS IRAN TURKY ATTACK 1879900