The Turkish army has asked for the extension of a parliamentary authorization to strike Kurdish rebel bases in neighboring Iraq, Anatolia news agency quoted a senior general as saying Friday.
The current one-year mandate expires on October 17.
Earlier this week, the general staff sent to the government a proposal for an extension, General Ferit Guler told reporters, according to Anatolia.
A military officer bears the photographs of two Turkish soldiers killed by the PKK Parliament had already once extended the mandate.
A new vote will be held in parliament if the government submits a request.
Turkey's parliament first approved the mandate in 2007 as the military stepped up an offensive against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrilla bases in northern Iraq, from where rebels launch attacks on security forces in southeast Turkey.
Those attacks have strained Iraq's relations with Turkey, which in the past has accused Baghdad of failing to do enough to halt PKK activities in northern Iraq. However recent diplomatic efforts have yielded an improvement in ties.
This year there has been a marked decline in the frequency of clashes between the Turkish military and the PKK, which took up arms against the state in 1984 with the aim of creating an independent state in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey.
Some media have suggested the government may not seek another renewal of the mandate as it is working on a plan of democratic reforms to win over the Kurdish minority and peacefully end the 25-year conflict.
But both Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the army have dismissed calls from Kurdish activists to stop military operations against the PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community.
Broadcaster CNN Turk said a military spokesman told a weekly media briefing the extension request had been sent to the prime minister's office on Sept. 14. The spokesman's comments could not immediately be confirmed.
NATO-member Turkey blames the PKK, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the EU, for the deaths of more than 40,000 people. |
