Two-Thirds of Turkish Troops Pull Out of Iraq

Dripping wet and weary from five weeks of operations against mountain bases of hostile Kurdish rebels, 20,000 Turkish troops Tuesday pulled out of northern Iraq as Turkey partially withdrew its forces there.

Turkish television showed commandos and armored columns pouring back over the border overnight, with troops kissing commanders’ hands after trudging across pontoon bridges or cheering at border posts before devouring hot bowls of soup.

The pullout left about 10,000 Turkish soldiers inside Iraq still carrying out Turkey’s “Operation Steel,” a controversial incursion by up to 35,000 troops aimed at wiping out Turkish Kurd rebels who have taken advantage of disorder in northern Iraq to set up bases in villages and mountain caves.

Announcing the withdrawal of the 20,000 soldiers, Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller again brushed aside criticism from Europe and a freeze on military shipments by Germany and the Netherlands.

The United States has publicly backed its North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally’s right to pursue the Marxist rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

“International public opinion asked, ‘Why did you go in?’ The answer is: legitimate self-defense. If need be, I say we’ll go back again with the same determination,” Ciller told a party caucus in Parliament.

A military spokesman did not detail the activities of the Turkish force left in northern Iraq. “The remaining troops will also return home when their mission is completed,” he said. He did not say when that was expected.

Since March 20, Turkish military spokesmen said, 505 Turkish Kurd rebels and 58 Turkish soldiers have been killed.

The rebels, for their part, say that the anti-guerrilla campaign has been a “total defeat” for Turkey and that 45 of their militants and 1,000 soldiers have been killed.

Clashes continue, with 41 rebels and two soldiers dying late Sunday and early Monday.

Diplomats say the operation had some success in disrupting guerrilla activity and pushing the rebels away from the Turkish border.

Television coverage of the weather-beaten soldiers also stirred up Turkish nationalism, helping an official army fund-raising campaign bring in more than $24 million.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns called Tuesday’s announcement “obviously a positive development,” saying, “It is consistent with the assurances given to the President and the secretary of state last week by Prime Minister Ciller that . . . this incursion would be limited in time and in scope.”

In Europe, the military campaign has done Turkey diplomatic damage and has strengthened the hand of pro-rebel Kurdish exiles who on April 12 set up a 65-seat Kurdish “Parliament in exile.”

The assembly’s principal executives seem aligned with the PKK. But it includes representatives of many of the Middle East’s 20 million ethnic Kurds, a mountain people who speak various dialects related to Persian.

European states believe the real solution to Turkey’s problem is to offer more rights to its 12 million ethnic Kurds, who make up about 20% of the population. But the majority is reluctant to go down a path it fears may split the country or encourage a separate Kurdistan.

Since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, an allied task force has protected the 3.5 million Kurds in northern Iraq. But the Iraqi Kurds are now fighting among themselves. In the resulting power vacuum, Turkish Kurd rebels have operated at will.