(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-20 13:45

WASHINGTON -- A Turkish envoy said here Wednesday it was American intelligence that made Turkey's latest raids in northern Iraq on Kurdish rebels possible.

"There is no doubt that this operation was possible due to, of course, the information shared by the United States of America," Turkey's Ambassador to the United States Nabi Sensoy told reporters.

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Attaching great importance to US intelligence sharing with Turkey, Sensoy declined to say whether the United States had directly pinpointed targets for Turkish warplanes.

The Turkish envoy made the remarks one day after White House spokeswoman Dana Perino admitted that the United States shared intelligence about Kurdish militants with Turkey and Iraq.

"We are coordinating with the Turkish and Iraqi authorities in the area. The PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party) is a threat to Turkey, to Iraq, and to the United States. So we continue to share information, share intelligence, with them.

"The Turks have moved forward with our coordination and in communication with the Iraqis in order to eradicate that threat," Perino said.  

The United States, supporting Ankara's effort to fight the outlawed PKK operating at Turkey-Iraq border area, declined to condemn Turkey's unilateral incursion into Iraq on the PKK.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30, 000 lives.