Free Republic

The threat of an invasion didn't materialize, and yet the Turkish army's activities in northern Iraq Wednesday revealed that it is only waiting for the right opportunity to launch strikes against the Kurdish separatist organization PKK in northern Iraq. Emotions are running dangerously high. For several minutes every television channel in Turkey carried the same images: weeping mothers desperately throwing themselves onto flag-draped coffins, huge crowds waving flags and chanting slogans against the Kurdish separatist organization, the PKK, and officers offering their condolences to the grieving mothers. The funerals of seven young recruits killed earlier in the week in a...

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan will speak to Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday about Turkish soldiers seized by U.S. forces in Iraq and hopes the incident will not inflame tensions between the NATO allies. "I will have a conversation with Vice President Dick Cheney around 1630 Turkish time (1330 GMT)," the Turkish prime minister told reporters. Erdogan accuses the United States of detaining 11 soldiers in northern Iraq on Friday. The U.S. military said on Sunday several soldiers thought to be Turks were in custody after a raid. The arrests could mar efforts to improve ties between...