Agence France-Presse,
AMADIYAH, Iraq: The Turkish army said it killed 41 Kurdish rebels Monday, taking the overall toll in its offensive in northern Iraq to 170, as the US renewed calls for restraint and a swift withdrawal.
As thousands in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast protested the incursion, top Turkish leaders joined mourners in Ankara for the funeral of three officers.
The army said the cross-border operation has now claimed the lives of 153 rebels and 17 soldiers since Thursday. The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) claim to have killed 81 soldiers.
“Forty-one terrorists have been neutralized in clashes throughout the day,” the army said in a statement posted on its website.
PKK fighters suffered “heavy losses under fire from close quarters” as they tried to escape the advancing Turkish columns, the statement said.
Warplanes hit around 30 targets deep in northern Iraq on the route of the Turkish advance as helicopter gunships and artillery maintained intense fire throughout the day, the army said.
Security forces in autonomous Kurdish-administered northern Iraq said warplanes bombed areas in and around Hakurk from 2000 GMT Sunday to 1100 GMT Monday until rains, strong winds and a heavy fog settled over the area.
Ankara gave fresh assurances Monday that its forces would retreat once they achieved their objective of flushing out the rebels, but offered no precise timeframe.
“Our struggle there — what we are trying to achieve — will determine the duration” of the operation, Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said after a cabinet meeting in Ankara.
A spokesman from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's office told AFP that the government was planning to send an envoy to Baghdad this week.
The Iraqi government at the weekend urged Turkey withdraw its forces “as soon as possible.”
In Washington, the White House also said it hoped the Turkish incursion would be short-lived and would avoid harming civilians.
“We hope that this is just a short-term incursion so that they can help deal with the threat” of PKK, spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.
Up to 10,000 protestors gathered in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, condemning the government for ordering the incursion.
“Terrorist Erdogan, hypocrite Erdogan,” they chanted.
On Monday, the Turkish army released fresh footage of the offensive, showing soldiers in white camouflage filing into a Sikorsky helicopter taking off from an unidentified base along with Cobra attack helicopters.
Soldiers carrying machine guns and assault rifles could be seen advancing in deep snow on rugged hills.
The footage also showed a convoy of military transport vehicles and black-and-white footage of unspecified targets destroyed by air strikes.
Thousands of mourners gathered meanwhile at a mosque in Ankara for the funeral of three officers killed in the operation, two them the pilots of a helicopter the army said was “destroyed” , without giving any details.
The PKK said Sunday that it had downed a Turkish attack helicopter near Amadiyah.
“Damn the PKK,” “The motherland will never be divided,” mourners chanted during the ceremony attended by President Abdullah Gul, Erdogan, army chief Yasar Buyukanit and other leaders.
Gul postponed a planned four-day trip to Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo this week because of the incursion, a spokesman from his office told AFP Monday.
Turkish troops stormed into northern Iraq Thursday evening in the largest cross-border offensive in years against PKK hideouts in the region.
Ankara says an estimated 4,000 PKK rebels are holed up in northern Iraq and use the region as a springboard for attacks in Turkey as part of their campaign for self-rule in southeast Turkey.
The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives since the PKK took up arms in 1984.
