Sir, - Mr Serhildan's letter (November 19th) strikes a familiar chord: his comments are blatantly one-sided and fail to explain the reasons why the Turkish government is obliged to increasingly engage in military operations in northern Iraq. As such, the operations obviously aim at eliminating the cross-border attacks of the PKK terror organisation, which uses the no-man's-land in northern Iraq as headquarters for its terrorist activities against the Turkish and Kurdish population on the other side. Turkey, like any other state, has an inarguable right to uphold her territorial integrity. Moreover, it is a well-known fact that the operations target exclusively the PKK, not the civilian Kurdish population of Northern Iraq, and never have.
Mr Serhildan's letter also tries to obfuscate the issue of "buffer zones". There is no buffer zone in northern Iraq as such. However, the Turkish government does envisage installing infra-red observation cameras along the Turkish-Iraq border to monitor PKK infiltration into Turkey, precisely because the Turkish military does not want to engage in continuous military operations in northern Iraq. Similarly, government reports have confirmed time and again that the Turkish armed forces do not use napalm or cluster bombs in the region despite claims by the PUK - one of the factions in that area, which has close ties to the PKK.
I believe that Mr Serhildan and any organisation with a claim to the title of "information network" have an obligation to inform the public correctly and fairly. - Yours, etc.,
Third Secretary, Embassy of the Republic of Turkey, Dublin.