U.S. Puts Mild Pressure on Turks to End Attacks

An unyielding Turkey launched fierce new ground and air attacks against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq on Thursday, even as the United States gently suggested that its ally end the extraordinary cross-border offensive.

In a careful bid to mend a coalition that shows signs of fraying, the Bush Administration joined Turkey in condemning as “terrorists” the anti-government Turkish Kurdish forces who have taken refuge in Iraq. But it warned that Turkey’s raids against rebel camps in the rugged border region could prove dangerous to civilians, who include Iraqi Kurdish refugees that the United States has courted and promised to protect from reprisals by Iraq.

“We would hope that the (Turkish) forces will swiftly conclude this operation against terrorists and will avoid the death or injury of innocent civilians,” the State Department said, breaking an official silence on the sensitive issue.

The subtle U.S. pressure on a partner in the Gulf War coalition against Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein came as Iraq’s most important Kurdish opposition groups expressed outrage at the Turkish offensive. At least 15 Iraqi Kurds had already been killed in the raids, the groups said.

U.S. officials cautioned that they could not verify the accounts, which reported dozens more Iraqi Kurds wounded in the attacks. But an Administration source said the claims are believed to be accurate and said U.S. officials fear that more casualties will be inevitable if Turkey persists in its campaign.

Even if unintended, the attacks by Turkey on Iraqi Kurds expose deep-seated tensions among those enlisted by the United States as allies; they raise a serious challenge to a Bush Administration effort to maintain unity in its campaign of pressure against Hussein.

Well-placed U.S. officials said the Administration is not likely to amplify its concerns despite what one source said is a widespread recognition that the Turkish crackdown is “clearly beyond the pale.”

An expert on the region who served on the staff of the National Security Council during the 1970s described the new violence and frictions between the Turks and Kurds as “part of the unpleasant reality of that part of the world.”

“As long as we are dealing with Turkey as one of our main allies against Iraq,” said the expert, William B. Quandt, “there are going to be these kinds of contradictions in the policy.”

The Turkish cross-border attacks are aimed at rebels from the Kurdish Workers Party who have have launched bloody guerrilla raids from Iraq into Turkey.

In the latest raids Thursday, the semiofficial Anatolia news agency reported, Turkish fighter-bombers mounted concentrated strikes on guerrilla strongholds inside Iraq near the point at which Turkey, Iran and Iraq converge. Turkish commandos also reportedly were moving in behind the air strikes.