Turkish troops head to Iraq pursuing rebel Kurds

Dozens of Turkish military vehicles loaded with soldiers and heavy weapons rumbled toward the Iraq border on Monday after an ambush by guerrilla Kurds that left eight soldiers missing and killed 12.\nIraq’s president said the rebels would announce a cease-fire later in the day. Turkey’s government, which has rejected similar announcements in the past, said the country will pursue diplomacy before it sends troops across the rugged frontier.\nTurkey’s military said it lost contact with the eight soldiers after Sunday’s clash and said 34 guerrillas had been killed so far in a counteroffensive. A pro-Kurdish news agency said the eight were captured – a claim that would make it the largest seizure since 1995, when guerrillas grabbed eight soldiers and took them to northern Iraq.\n“Right now, these soldiers are hostages in the hands of our forces,” the pro-Kurdish Firat News Agency quoted a rebel commander, Bahoz Erdal, as saying.\nErdal said the soldiers’ families should not worry about the fate of their sons: “We have not harmed them and we will not.”\nThe ambush on Sunday outraged an already frustrated public. Demonstrations erupted across the country, and opposition leaders called for an immediate strike against rebel bases in Iraq, despite appeals for restraint from Iraq, the U.S. and European leaders.\nIn Washington, the State Department said the United States has opened a diplomatic “full court press” to urge Turkey not to invade northern Iraq.\n“In our view, there are better ways to deal with this issue,” spokesman Sean McCormack said, stressing that the United States regards the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known by its Kurdish acronym PKK, as a terrorist organization.\nIraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said the PKK would make a cease-fire announcement later Monday.\nTurkey has rejected several past unilateral cease-fires declared by rebels, saying it would maintain fighting until all rebels surrender or are killed. In the past, rebels have pressed ahead with attacks despite cease-fires on grounds that they were defending themselves.\nTurkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a telephone conversation on Sunday night that Turkey expected “speedy steps from the U.S.” in cracking down on Kurdish rebels and that Rice, who called the Turkish leader, asked “for a few days” from him.\nMcCormack did not dispute the account of the conversation but declined to comment on what Rice had meant by asking for “a few days.”\nErdogan did not specify what he meant by “speedy steps,” but he has often urged the United States and Iraq to crack down on the PKK. Turkish leaders say it is the responsibility of those countries to do whatever is necessary to destroy the guerrilla group’s bases in northern Iraq.\n“We will continue these diplomatic efforts with all good intentions to solve this problem caused by a terrorist organization,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan told reporters in Kuwait. “But in the end, if we do not reach any results, there are other means we might have to use.”