Turkey targets Iraq Kurds, not just rebels: Kurd PM

By Shamal Aqrawi

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Kurdistan's prime minister said he suspected Turkey's incursion into northern Iraq was meant to target the Kurdish region and not just separatist guerrilla bases in the remote mountainous area.

Thousands of Turkish troops, backed by tanks, attack helicopters and warplanes, crossed into northern Iraq on February 21 in an operation which Ankara said was aimed at Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas and their bases.

"We're not convinced whether these attacks are truly against the PKK or if they are actually against the Kurdistan region of Iraq," said Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of largely autonomous Kurdistan in northern Iraq.

"The actions of the Turkish military in attacking bridges in the border areas, which are important to people there, makes us anxious," Barzani told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday.

PKK fighters have used bases in the area in a decades-long armed campaign for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.

Turkish officials have said they targeted the bridges because they were used by PKK rebels.

Turkey views Kurdish northern Iraq with mixed emotions.

On the one hand, it fears the emergence of a wealthy Kurdish independent state that could fuel a separatist insurgency in its southeast.