Turks Press Attack on Rebel Kurds in Iraq : Warfare: Operation to smash guerrillas fighting for autonomy is largest undertaken by Ankara. Officials say action is not a threat to Baghdad.

About 35,000 Turkish army troops supported by tanks and jet fighters hammered Tuesday at suspected Kurdish guerrilla positions in northern Iraq for the second day in an all-out thrust to decapitate a separatist insurgency.

Army officers said troops were meeting little resistance. They reported that 24 guerrillas and eight Turkish soldiers had been killed.

The operation, characterized by government spokesmen as the biggest ever undertaken by the Turkish army, is aimed at destroying about two dozen bases operated by rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. Turkish officials stressed that the operation will be limited and was not a threat to Iraq’s territorial integrity.

Turkey launched its offensive Monday on the eve of Nowruz, the Kurdish new year, traditionally a time of heightened tension and guerrilla activity in the mainly Kurdish southeastern region of Turkey.

The Turkish push also occurred two days after 18 soldiers were killed when the PKK ambushed an 800-member military convoy in Tunceli province, thus disproving Ankara’s claims that the movement was fading.

Four main target areas for the offensive were identified along the 150-mile Iraqi-Turkish border, where Ankara believes that 2,400 to 2,800 Kurdish fighters are based.

The Turkish troops have penetrated up to 25 miles inside Iraqi territory, pushing east toward the Iranian border. The aim, according to military officials, is to cause “as much destruction as possible” to the rebels.

On Monday, the Foreign Ministry briefed ambassadors of the United States and its European allies, nations that have participated since the Persian Gulf War in “Operation Provide Comfort,” which offers air cover to protect Iraqi Kurds from attack by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

Since 1984, the Turkish Kurdish rebels, seeking autonomy and ethnic rights for the 12-million-strong Kurdish minority in Turkey, have fought a guerrilla war against the Turkish army. The dispute has claimed more than 15,000 lives.

Over the last year, Turkey, which has attacked across the border before but never in such force, has increased military pressure against the PKK on Turkish soil.

With the help of the Iraqi Kurds, Ankara forced the PKK to abandon bases close to the border. Cooperation with the Iraqi Kurds, mainly Masoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, whose peshmerga fighters patrol the area, has prevented the PKK from launching cross-border attacks against Turkey from Iraq.

But over the last few weeks, Ankara had expressed increasing concern over the violent fighting that erupted between the KDP and its rival, Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK.

The current cleanup action by Turkey is prompted by Ankara’s fears that the PKK is taking advantage of the power vacuum created by KDP-PUK conflict to reorganize its bases and strengthen its position in the border area.

United Nations refugee officials in Geneva also warned Turkey not to abduct civilians after unconfirmed reports--officially denied by Ankara--that Turkish troops had rounded up Turkish Kurdish refugees near the town of Zakhu and taken them back to Turkey.

The White House tacitly endorsed the raids Monday after Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller told President Clinton that the operation will be limited and civilian lives safeguarded.