Turkey plans incursion, PKK says ready to attack

By Ferit Demir

TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) - Kurdish separatist rebels said on Friday they were crossing back into Turkey to target politicians and police after Ankara said it was preparing to attack them in the mountains of northern Iraq.

As regional tensions rose, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan cautioned that relations between Ankara and Washington were in danger over a U.S. congressional resolution branding as genocide massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

Washington harbors growing concerns about the possibility of a major Turkish military incursion to crush Kurdish rebels seeking a homeland in eastern Turkey. U.S. officials fear such an action could destabilize a relatively peaceful area of Iraq.

Ankara recalled its ambassador from the United States for consultations after the U.S. vote, which was strongly condemned in predominantly Muslim but secular Turkey.

"We don't need anyone's advice on northern Iraq and the operation to be carried out there," Erdogan told a cheering crowd in Istanbul, after saying that the United States "came tens of thousands of kilometers and attacked Iraq without asking anyone's permission".

Referring to relations with the United States and the Armenian resolution, Erdogan, using a Turkish idiom usually employed to describe relations, said: "Where the rope is worn thin, may it break off." He did not elaborate.

"All prospects look bad ... and relations with the U.S. have already gone down the drain," Semih Idiz, a veteran Turkish commentator, told Reuters.

"If Turkey sets its mind on something, whether wrong or right it will do it. The invasion of Cyprus in 1974 is a good example," he said, referring to a Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus which drew U.S. condemnation and sanctions.