Turkish army continues invasion of northern Iraq
Iraq-Turkey, Politics, 5/17/1999

The Turkish army, since Friday, has continued a new invasion operation against northern Iraq, under the pretext of chasing armed Kurds.

The Turkish daily Hurriet reported on Sunday that, "Turkish forces, backed by some 15,000 troops and hundreds of villags guards, sneaked into the Iraqi territories from Olodeidi area in Seirnak province, escorted by Turkish warplanes."

The Turkish paper added that the Turkish troops made an incursion of 20 km inside the Iraqi territories.

Meanwhile, Iraq has called on the UN Security Council to intervene to halt US - British attacks coming from the Turkish airspace and resulting in killing Iraqi civilians. Iraqi dailies issued on Sunday said that the "US - British air raids are but a daily aggression in which the two countries invest the complete silence of the UN over the daily crimes against the Iraqi citizens in their homes or offices, alike."

An Iraqi spokesman said that US and UK warplanes bombarded on Saturday civil establishments outside the no-fly zone area in northern Iraq.

Iraq, in addition to the air strikes, suffers from a nine-year siege.

On Sunday, Baghdad stressed that its agricultural season faces great problems due to increased agricultural diseases as a result of the imposed embargo.

In press statements, the director general of plant protection in Iraq, Jamal Fadel, said, "We suffer great problems resulting from agricultural diseases arising from banning agricultural flights and the delay for approving flights over so-called no-fly zones, besides the fact the flying capacity has been reduced to 20% in comparison with the figures prior to 1990 due to the imposed sanctions and the non-availability of spare parts."

He held the US and Britain responsible for the damage inflicted on Iraqi agriculture, saying these two counrties obstruct the arrival of spare parts for agricultural planes.

Previous Stories:
  UN chief gets a message from al-Sahaf   (5/14/1999)
  Some 20 Iraqis wounded in American raids   (4/30/1999)
  Iraq asks the Arab league to stop the Turkish aggression on its lands   (4/21/1999)

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search