Iraq’s Kurdish government cuts off aid to PKK rebels

    MOSUL, Iraq, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- Northern Iraq's Kurdish regional government (KRG) said Monday it has tightened its measures to isolate the separatist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish source said.

    "The cabinet of the regional Kurdish government approved instructions to the security forces to cut off all kinds of aid that may reach the PKK fighters," the source close to the Kurdish government told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    The cabinet's instructions also recommended additional checkpoints on a road leading to the Iraqi-Turkish borders, the source said.

    The aid cutoff came three days after the KRG shut down offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party, which was alleged to have close ties with the PKK.

    Right after the border tension rose between Turkey and Iraq following a PKK attack against Turkey troops on Oct. 21, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has promised to close all the PKK offices in Iraq and not to allow any "terrorist" groups to use the Iraqi soil to attack neighboring countries.

    During an ministerial conference on Iraq's security, which was held on Saturday in Turkey's Istanbul, Maliki also announced other measures to clamp down on the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey.

    Ankara has been urging Iraq and the United States to take swift and concrete steps to strike PKK rebels who have been launching attacks against Turkish targets over the last two decades.

    The latest high-profile attack by PKK militants occurred on Oct.21, during which 12 Turkish soldiers were killed and eight others seized by Kurdish rebels.

    The attack resulted in a wave of angry demonstrations in Turkish cities and significantly rose pressure for the Turkish government to launch a cross-border operation in northern Iraq.

    In response, Turkey has now massed up to 100,000 troops along the mountainous border with Iraq in preparations for a cross-border operation to crush about 3,000-strong PKK rebels.

    The United States has been trying to dissuade Turkey from such a military operation.

    The PKK, listed by the United States and Turkey as a terrorist group, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast.

    More than 30,000 people have been killed in the more than two decades conflict.