WORLD
BAGHDAD — Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq said today that their forces would defend civilians if they were caught up in any fighting between Turkish troops and Kurdish rebels from the outlawed PKK in the area.
On Tuesday, Turkey sent hundreds of troops across the border into the frigid mountains of northern Iraq, claiming it inflicted heavy losses on Turkish Kurd rebels in the small-scale incursion and in air strikes two days earlier.
The offensive puts more pressure on Washington to mediate between Iraq and Turkey. In a sign of increasing tension, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported that more than 1,800 people fled their homes in parts of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdistan last weekend.
Iraqi officials have complained that Turkey's actions are a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, although they also have said they recognize the threat posed by the PKK, or Kurdistan People's Party.
"We are not part of the military dispute between Turkey and the PKK," said Jabar Yawar, a spokesman for Kurdistan's Peshmerga militia.
Tuesday's raid was the first confirmed Turkish ground operation targeting rebel bases inside Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, though about 1,200 Turkish military monitors have operated in northern Iraq since 1996 with permission from local authorities.
PARIS — A court today convicted five former inmates from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of having links to terrorist groups, while acquitting a sixth man.The five were convicted of "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise," a broad charge frequently used in France. The court gave them one-year prison sentences.The verdict had originally been expected in September 2006 but was postponed. At the time, the court said it needed to seek more information about secret interrogations of the suspects by French intelligence officers at the base.The suspects' lawyers had complained that the men were questioned by agents of France's DST counterintelligence service outside the framework of international law. Information about the interrogations did not surface until the trial was already under way, when the newspaper Liberation published a classified document about them.Seven French citizens were captured in or near Afghanistan by U.S. forces in late 2001, held at Guantanamo, and then handed over to French authorities in 2004 and 2005. One was freed immediately and found to have no ties to terrorism, while the others were released later as investigations continued into their cases.The men all insisted they were innocent.
SEOUL, South Korea — Former Hyundai CEO Lee Myung-bak claimed victory today in South Korea's presidential election, as voters overlooked fraud allegations in hopes he will revive the economy.Lee's two main rivals both conceded defeat after returns and exit polls showed him winning nearly double the votes of his closest competitor."Today, the people gave me absolute support. I'm well aware of the people's wishes," said Lee, of the conservative Grand National Party. "I will serve the people in a very humble way. According to the people's wishes, I will save the nation's economy that faces a crisis."The National Election Commission said Lee had 47 percent of the vote and liberal Chung Dong-young was a distant second at 27.5 percent, with 58 percent of the vote counted.An exit poll sponsored by TV stations KBS and MBC showed Lee getting 50.3 percent of the vote. The poll of 70,000 people had a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.Lee, a former Seoul mayor who turned 66 on election day, has led the race for months. His victory ends a decade of liberal rule in the South, during which the country embarked on unprecedented reconciliation with rival North Korea that has led to restored trade and travel across the heavily armed frontier dividing the peninsula.
