June 29, 2007 (LPAC)--Sending a clear message to those who are arming the PKK terrorists, ensconced inside Iraq along the borders and carrying out terrorist acts inside Turkey, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul in a live interview with the CNN-Turk, warned on Friday (June 29) that the Turkish air strikes against Kurdish militant camps in northern Iraq may not necessarily need Parliament's approval. "It depends on the scope," Gul said, The New Anatolian reported on June 29.

Turkey has been pressuring Iraq and the United States to crack down on the terrorists of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, based in northern Iraq. The United States is opposed to a large scale incursion for fear of seeing the relatively stable part of Iraq slide into chaos. "If Iraq or the United States cannot stop the PKK threat, then we make the decision and go in," Gul was quoted as saying in an interview published on June 29 in the Radikal Daily .

On June 27, Turkey's Chief of Staff General Yasar Buyukanit asked the government in a televised speech to set guidelines for an incursion into northern Iraq. General Buyukant had earlier accused our allies, implying the United States, of arming the PKK. The General's allegation has since been responded to by the US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, telling reporters: "We have no information about any such thing. When we do have such information, I would be glad to share it with you, but we do not know anything about this at this point."

Foreign Minister Gul, when asked whether the government would ask the Parliament to authorize the military to carry out an incursion before Turkey's general election scheduled to be held on July 22, he said: "every kind of scenario is ready and on the table."