Turkish warplanes and troops attacked Kurdish rebels inside Iraq this week, security sources said on Wednesday, but Ankara wants to hold back from any major incursion for now to give diplomacy a chance.Turkey moved more troops to the mountainous border, keeping up pressure on Baghdad to honour promises to crack down on an estimated 3,000 rebels of Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who use the region as a base.Security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a series of sorties between Sunday and Tuesday evening in which Turkish warplanes flew 20 km into Iraq and some 300 ground troops advanced about 10 km.“Further ‘hot pursuit’ raids into northern Iraq can be expected, though none have taken place so far today (Wednesday),” a military official said.The sorties killed 34 PKK rebels and all the Turkish troops involved in the operations were now back in Turkey, he said.But Abdul Rahman Jaderji, a PKK spokesman in northern Iraq, told Reuters there had been no direct fighting between the two sides since clashes on Sunday in which 12 soldiers were killed.He said Turkish troops had been shelling areas of northern Iraq, but little new shelling had been reported on Wednesday. Baghdad has pledged to act against the rebels. A Turkish official on Wednesday quoted Iraqi President Jalal Talabani as saying Iraq might hand over PKK militants to Turkey. Talabani had previously ruled out any such move despite Turkish appeals.
