(21 Oct 2007)
++QUALITY AS INCOMING++
Shlachti, Turkish area bordering Iraq
1. Various of Turkish armoured vehicles and tanks on hillside at Iraqi-Turkish border
Shlachti, Turkish area bordering Iraq
2. Wide of Turkish tanks on hillside, troops
Istanbul, Turkey
3. SOUNDBITE: (Turkish) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish Prime Minister:
"Tonight at 8 pm (1800 GMT) under the leadership of the President ( Abdullah Gul ), and the participation by the related establishments, myself, the Chief of Staff, Deputy Prime Minister, Chief of the counter terror unit, Interior Minister, Minister for Defence and the chiefs of all the armed forces, we will gather for a meeting. We will discuss the current situation at this large meeting and we will make the decision as to what kind of steps will be taken."
Sirsank, northern Iraqi border
4. Various of protest march against threatened Turkish incursion into autonomous Kurdish region
5. Demonstrators chanting and marching, holding Kurdish flags and banners
6. Wide top shot of protest march
7. Mid of protesters
8. Top pan across march
9. Young boys taking part in rally
10. Low shot showing young boys, families marching
11. Elderly ladies waving flags, pan to school girls in march
12. Top shot of march
13. Pan across crowds of protesters gathered for rally
STORYLINE:
Turkey's leaders were to hold an emergency meeting on Sunday to decide what steps to take against separatist Kurdish rebels, following an attack that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said killed at least 12 soldiers.
"We will discuss the current situation at this large meeting and we will make the decision as to what kind of steps will be taken," Erodgan said as he announced the high level meeting.
He also urged the public to remain calm in the wake of the attack, which came four days after Turkey's Parliament passed a motion allowing the military to launch an offensive into neighbouring northern Iraq to stamp out rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, hiding there.
Turkish leaders earlier said that the motion did not mean that Turkey would immediately order a cross-border offensive.
Though it was not immediately clear exactly where the rebels in the latest attack were based, the clash is likely to increase calls for the military to stage an incursion.
Hours later, Iraq said, Turkish forces fired about 15 artillery shells toward Kurdish villages in the border area in northern Iraq, but there were no casualties.
AP Television filmed tanks and armoured vehicles stationed at Shlachti, near the Turkey-Iraq border on Sunday.
Also on Sunday, around two-thousand Kurdish protesters gathered in the streets of a border city in northern Iraq on Sunday to demonstrate against the threatened Turkish incursion.
Waving the sunshine flag of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, protesters, including families and elderly women, marched through Sirsank.
The rally was part of large scale protests by Iraqi Kurds, which followed the motion by the Turkish Parliament.
Turkey has been pressing the United States and the Iraqi government to crack down on the rebels who have found safe havens in the remote,
mountainous areas of the self-governed northern Iraq.
The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast since 1984 in a conflict that has killed more than 30-thousand people.
Turkey says the rebels periodically cross the border to stage attacks in their war for autonomy.
The US and Iraq oppose any unilateral action by Turkey, fearing it could destabilise northern Iraq, the most stable part of the country.
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