Turkey is keeping both the military and the diplomatic options open in its dealings with Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said on Sunday.
Following talks with his Iranian counterpart in Tehran, Babacan said the Turkish people had not lost their patience, but called for greater international support.
Turkey has more than 100,000 troops deployed on the border with Iraq and has threatened to launch a military strike in the area to eradicate members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has increased its attacks on Turkish security forces over the past few months.
Diplomats in the West and in Baghdad want to prevent a wide-scale military standoff in northern Iraq to prevent further instability in the country.
Ankara has said Iraqi proposals to tackle rebels in northern Iraq were insufficient because they would take too long to implement.
It is unlikely Turkey will launch a ground offensive into Iraq before Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s scheduled meeting with United States President George W. Bush in Washington on November 5, observers say.